The term vaccine needs no introduction to most people living in the 21st century, but vaccines are also widely used for preventing diseases in animals like cattle and Foot and mouth disease is one such disease, which affects hoofed animals like cow, pigs, goat and sheep. Vaccines for foot and mouth disease are made by inactivating the foot and mouth disease virus (or FMDV), but retaining the integrity of a viral particle called the 146S particle.  This particle is vital for triggering the animal’s immune system to produce neutralizing antibodies against FMDV and building immunity against the foot and mouth disease. Historically, the FMD virus was inactivated using formaldehyde treatment, which often led to improper inactivation, and served the risk of causing an infection. Further, replacements like binary-ethylenimine and N-acetyl-ethylenimine were effective in inactivating the virus, but were found to be toxic and did not have the potency of formaldehyde. Scientists further thought of using a combination of these inactivating agents to achieve the optimal inactivation rates. This approach has mostly been successful, in terms of increasing both the inactivation rates of the virus as well as the yield of 146S particles obtained for making the vaccines. Now, scientists from Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bengaluru have conducted an extensive study to evaluate the inactivation of Indian vaccine strains of FMDV using a combination of reagents like formaldehyde, binary ethylenimine and glutaraldehyde. Their study shows that in general, using a combination of binary ethylenimine and formaldehyde was seen to be a better inactivation agent than using binary ethylenimine with glutaraldehyde, or using only binary ethylamine. They also saw no major changes in the 146S content of the virus strains during the inactivation process. Using such a combination of inactivating agents could allow the inactivation process to be carried out much faster, and could aid in the development of a faster, safer and more standardized vaccine production process.