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Wikipedia:Peer review/DNA vaccination/archive1

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I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to get this article to Featured Article status. Thanks -- Biochemza, 18:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Colin

[edit]

I'm a lay reader. There's clearly a lot of work gone into this and loads of detail. Here are some impressions.

  • I found the rotating DNA to be distracting when reading the lead. We all know what DNA looks like. This is just eye-candy.
  • Most of the uses of quotes in the lead should be replaced IMO. The "vaccines of the future" should be replaced with a simple statement of fact (i.e, they aren't in-use yet but may become the dominant form). The "third generation" is either an accepted fact or else probably doesn't belong in the lead. I don't know why "whole organism" or "genetically engineered" are in quotes.
  • The "ability to induce a wide range of immune response types" doesn't strike me as an "advantage over conventional vaccines".
  • The "third generation" sentence doesn't fit with rest of the paragraph.
  • The "conventional vaccines, however" sentence, while true, seems to be trying to make a point wrt DNA vaccines. In fact, the whole lead is too much like a sales pitch.
  • The "First generation" paragraph quickly enters expert-reader territory. The lead has to be accessible to all.
  • The "second generation" vaccines don't "overcome these drawbacks" as they have the same disadvantage as killed vaccines. The text doesn't really explain why these are better than killed vaccines. It isn't clear to me what the "third generation" are able to do in comparison to the immune responses you mention.
  • By the last paragraph, you've completely lost me. I don't understand any of the sentences.
  • The final sentence mentions a naming issue that you has was resolved in 1994. Old news. Not really important for the lead. This also implies that people have been researching these for over 10 years. That's a long time.
  • The smallpox vaccine kit image is not relevant to this article IMO.
  • The "Advantages and Disadvantages" table is an ugly way to start an article.
  • The "Current use" section should probably be moved to the lead. Let's not fool the reader into thinking this is a current form of vaccination.
  • I recommend you don't supply the URL parameter for journal articles where the article (not just the abstract) is not freely available online. Where one does link, my preference is not to bother with the "access date" since unlike most web-pages, journal articles don't change once they go to print. Also, you should supply a DOI or a PMID, which will aid anyone with subscribed journal access to read it.
  • I haven't read the rest in detail, only skimmed. This is a shame since it is probably a fascinating and exciting area of research. The technical level is more Nature than New Scientist. Wikipedia is for the general reader, and I fear that means you've got quite a challenging task to explain this in simpler terms. It will also mean that some esoteric material has to go.

Colin°Talk 13:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]