Hepatitis B Vaccine
A plasma-derived hepatitis B vaccine (1981) and the first recombinant human vaccine (1986) protect against a liver-cancer virus; newborn vaccination cut childhood liver cancer in Taiwan.
Open in the interactive tree →Baruch Blumberg reported the 'Australia antigen' in the 1960s and shared the 1976 Nobel Prize; it was linked to the hepatitis B virus in 1968. Merck's Heptavax-B, developed by Maurice Hilleman's team from purified antigen in donor blood, was approved in the US in 1981, and Recombivax-HB (23 July 1986) was the first human vaccine made with recombinant DNA, with the protein produced in yeast. After Taiwan began vaccinating newborns in July 1984, liver cancer in children aged 6 to 14 fell from 0.70 to 0.36 per 100,000 a year between 1981-86 and 1990-94. WHO counted about 240 million people with chronic hepatitis B in 2024.
Prerequisites
- Vaccination1796A purified viral surface protein trains the immune system without infection.
- Genetic Engineering1973From 1986 yeast cells carrying the viral gene make the protein.
Unlocks
- HPV Vaccine2006Gardasil is made like it: a viral coat protein produced in yeast.
- Malaria Vaccines (RTS,S, R21)2021–2024RTS,S and R21 carry the malaria protein on yeast-made hepatitis B antigen particles.
- Vaccines That Prevent Cancer2040s?The first vaccine shown to cut a cancer, liver cancer in children.