Twisted Titan
11th January 2011, 02:08 PM
http://www.aolhealth.com/condition-center/cold-flu/universal-flu-vaccine?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-n%7Cdl3%7Csec1_lnk3%7C194761
Scientists Say They're Zeroing in on 'Universal' Flu Vaccine
People who caught the H1N1 virus last winter hold a secret, and it could be the key to developing a "universal" flu vaccine that would protect against most types of the winter illness.
Scientists say that an analysis of antibodies made from those who were infected with swine flu and recovered shows an unexpected response to the virus by their immune systems -- which made a host of antibodies that could ward off many other strains of flu.
Those include most forms of H1N1 from the last 10 years, a strain of H5N1 bird flu and the deadly "Spanish flu" that killed scores of people in 1918.
Producing one vaccine that could fight multiple strains of flu would be revolutionary, since it would end the annual rush to predict which one will be dominant that season and make a vaccine in bulk that will kill it.
"We didn't expect to see these types of antibodies," first author Jens Wrammert, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University's Vaccine Center, told AOL Health. "We were surprised at the finding."
The results, published in the Jan. 10 edition of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, are "something like the Holy Grail for flu vaccine research," said one of the study's lead authors Patrick Wilson, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.
"It demonstrates how to make a single vaccine that could potentially provide immunity to all influenza," he said in a news release put out by the University of Chicago Medical Center.
He and others who have been working on a so-called "universal flu vaccine" say that the implications are far-reaching. Bringing the illness under control could essentially save tens of thousands of lives. Estimates of annual flu deaths in the U.S. run between 3,300 and 49,000.
The Chicago/Emory School of Medicine team studied nine people who had been infected during the H1N1 pandemic's first round in 2009, before a vaccine for it had been created. They began taking blood samples and making antibodies from those patients in the hopes of developing a shot that could protect health-care workers.
The scientists wound up making 86 antibodies that responded to the H1N1 swine flu virus and tested them on other strains of the flu. Five of the 86 warded off multiple types of the virus, including most H1N1 strains from the last decade, the "Spanish flu" and one form of avian flu, the researchers said.
They also tested the antibodies on mice and found that the animals got complete immunity from a normally deadly injection of the flu virus, even up to 60 days after exposure.
"The surprise was that such a very difficult influenza strain, as opposed to the most common strains, could lead us to something so widely applicable," Wilson said.
The H1N1 epidemic swept the U.S. during the winter of 2009-2010 and infected up to 60 million people. A quarter of a million of them were hospitalized.
"Our data shows that infection with the 2009 pandemic influenza strain could induce broadly protective antibodies that are only rarely seen after seasonal flu infections or flu shots," Wrammert said in a statement. "These findings show that these types of antibodies can be induced in humans ... and suggest that a pan-influenza vaccine might be feasible."
But researchers are likely years away from bringing an all-encompassing flu shot to market.
"They're trying to develop a vaccine that would induce these types of immuno-responses," he told AOL Health. "It still requires a lot of additional studies before such a vaccine would be available, for sure."
Scientists Say They're Zeroing in on 'Universal' Flu Vaccine
People who caught the H1N1 virus last winter hold a secret, and it could be the key to developing a "universal" flu vaccine that would protect against most types of the winter illness.
Scientists say that an analysis of antibodies made from those who were infected with swine flu and recovered shows an unexpected response to the virus by their immune systems -- which made a host of antibodies that could ward off many other strains of flu.
Those include most forms of H1N1 from the last 10 years, a strain of H5N1 bird flu and the deadly "Spanish flu" that killed scores of people in 1918.
Producing one vaccine that could fight multiple strains of flu would be revolutionary, since it would end the annual rush to predict which one will be dominant that season and make a vaccine in bulk that will kill it.
"We didn't expect to see these types of antibodies," first author Jens Wrammert, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University's Vaccine Center, told AOL Health. "We were surprised at the finding."
The results, published in the Jan. 10 edition of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, are "something like the Holy Grail for flu vaccine research," said one of the study's lead authors Patrick Wilson, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.
"It demonstrates how to make a single vaccine that could potentially provide immunity to all influenza," he said in a news release put out by the University of Chicago Medical Center.
He and others who have been working on a so-called "universal flu vaccine" say that the implications are far-reaching. Bringing the illness under control could essentially save tens of thousands of lives. Estimates of annual flu deaths in the U.S. run between 3,300 and 49,000.
The Chicago/Emory School of Medicine team studied nine people who had been infected during the H1N1 pandemic's first round in 2009, before a vaccine for it had been created. They began taking blood samples and making antibodies from those patients in the hopes of developing a shot that could protect health-care workers.
The scientists wound up making 86 antibodies that responded to the H1N1 swine flu virus and tested them on other strains of the flu. Five of the 86 warded off multiple types of the virus, including most H1N1 strains from the last decade, the "Spanish flu" and one form of avian flu, the researchers said.
They also tested the antibodies on mice and found that the animals got complete immunity from a normally deadly injection of the flu virus, even up to 60 days after exposure.
"The surprise was that such a very difficult influenza strain, as opposed to the most common strains, could lead us to something so widely applicable," Wilson said.
The H1N1 epidemic swept the U.S. during the winter of 2009-2010 and infected up to 60 million people. A quarter of a million of them were hospitalized.
"Our data shows that infection with the 2009 pandemic influenza strain could induce broadly protective antibodies that are only rarely seen after seasonal flu infections or flu shots," Wrammert said in a statement. "These findings show that these types of antibodies can be induced in humans ... and suggest that a pan-influenza vaccine might be feasible."
But researchers are likely years away from bringing an all-encompassing flu shot to market.
"They're trying to develop a vaccine that would induce these types of immuno-responses," he told AOL Health. "It still requires a lot of additional studies before such a vaccine would be available, for sure."