Immune Molecule That Attacks Wide Range Of Flu Viruses Discovered

[kpete]

Immune Molecule That Attacks Wide Range Of Flu Viruses Discovered

ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2009) — The discovery of the molecule, an antibody known as CR6261, is good news for researchers who hope to design a flu vaccine that would give humans lifelong protection against a majority of influenza viruses. The antibody also has the potential to treat those who are unvaccinated and become infected with the flu.

"This is very exciting because it marks the first step toward the Holy Grail of influenza vaccinology – the development of a durable and cross-protective universal influenza virus vaccine," says the study's senior investigator, Ian Wilson, D.Phil., a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and a member of The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research. "Such a flu vaccine could be given to a person just once and act as a universal protectant for most subtypes of influenza, even against pandemic viruses."

Flu vaccines now offer protection only for the specific strains of influenza that public health officials believe to be currently circulating in the population. This involves a lot of guesswork about which strains will be most prevalent and, because the virus is constantly mutating, this guesswork must be repeated year after year.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, in the United States more than 200,000 people are typically hospitalized from flu complications every year, and about 36,000 people die from the illness. But that is in a normal year. Over the past century, three major human influenza pandemics (the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919, the Asian Flu of 1957-1958, and the Hong Kong Flu of 1968-1969) have devastated the human population, killing around 50-100 million people worldwide.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090226141118.htm

[L0oniX]

1. I would expect that the companies that make the flu vaccine every year will try to stop this.

[lurky]

2. This is fantastic (potentially). I wonder if

this could give them the insight to do the same thing for other sneaky viruses, like HIV...

Also, notice that this research was done at a university, using government NIH research grants, NOT by some private pharmaceutical corp. I just had to point that out.