Medill freshman Victoria Thieme has hated getting shots ever since she was little, and that has not changed since coming to college.

“I cry when I’m getting a shot at school,” she said. “I need my mom with me.”

The same bacteria that make yogurt so good for you could also take the ouch out of shots. A new study done by a researcher at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine showed that getting vaccinations could one day be as simple as taking a trip to Red Mango.

The vaccine, which would be ingested orally, employs lactobacillus bacteria. (That’s where smoothies, yogurt, and milk come into play. Lactobacilli are naturally found in the small intestine and vagina, and are also in yogurt.) The bacteria are probiotic, which means they are healthy for the host organism.

After ingestion, the bacteria colonize the gut and produce the vaccine of interest. After two to three cycles the bacteria die, and they are captured by immune system cells that become activated and produce an immune response.

In addition to being tasty and less painful, the technology could help solve problems of price, production and purity.

“The vaccine is cheap, you can produce as many as possible, and you don’t need to purify your vaccine out of the bacteria because the bacteria by itself is very beneficial,” lead study author Mansour Mohamadzadeh said. “If the probiotic vaccine is successfully employed, it will basically cover everything you can think of for vaccine and therapy.”

And, the immune response is more complete than it is through vaccination by injection. The oral vaccinations mobilize the mucosal immune system, which then induces systemic and peripheral immunity. Injections into the skin only induce systemic immunity.

“It feels less medical because you’re not actually getting a shot, but if the research is there I would trust it,” said Weinberg junior Daniel Filardo, a pre-med chemistry major.

The idea originated almost ten years ago, when researchers realized they could exploit the good bacteria already present in the gut. So far, the vaccinations have only been tested on mice. They will be tested on primates next, and if the vaccinations are successful, there will be human clinical trials. This could happen as soon as five years from now, once the researchers receive the funds necessary to continue. Mohamadzadeh said he hopes the pharmaceutical industry will encourage the research and fork over some funds. He has high expectations for the vaccine, and hopes that its introduction to poorer nations will help spread vaccine technology.

Someday, the vaccine may help people like Thieme avoid needles for good. “Even though they only last a millisecond, I have this inexplicable fear of shots, and I have no idea why.”