What Are Microbes?

To understand how vaccines work, it helps to look first at how the immune system works. This short animation explains how vaccines enable the body to make the right sort of antibodies to fight a particular disease.

This animation depicts how Cas13—a CRISPR-associated protein—may be adapted to detect human disease. This new diagnostic tool, called SHERLOCK, targets RNA (rather than DNA), and has the potential to transform research and global public health.

Watch how the jiggling motion of bacterial DNA stops when a natural antimicrobial peptide permeates the E. coli membrane. This novel mechanism helps explain why bacteria develop resistance very slowly and may inform the design of new antimicrobial agents.