Irradiation of live virus vaccines - (Nov/08/2005 )

Hi all,
I am interested in killing live virus vaccines (MMR and Varicella) using irradiation. For the purposes of my experiment I would like to use irradiation rather than chemical or heat inactivation. Have you done anything like this? Do you know what amount of irradiation to use for this? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

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Does your lab have access to a gamma irradiator system?

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Yes-there is a core facility. But they have never irradiated live viruses of this sort.

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I would have thought they would have had either first-hand knowledge or the contacts and ability to find out for you.

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I've just seen a paper (Jahrling et al. PNAS 2004) in which they nuked smallpox virus with 2 x10e6 rads in a cobalt 60 irradiator.

HTH

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