Scientists' discovery could lead to universal flu vaccine
Updated
Scientists in the United States have made a breakthrough that could lead to a universal flu vaccine.
They've discovered anti-bodies that neutralise multiple strains of the influenza virus, and a so-called "pan-therapy" or broad-spectrum vaccine could be just five years away. The findings have just been published in Nature Magazine.
Presenter: Zoie Jones
Speaker: Dr Wayne Marasco from the Harvard Medical School; Dr Robert Liddington is from the Burnham Institute in California
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ZOIE JONES: Each year around 500,000 people around the world die from the flu.
The difficulty with developing a flu vaccine is that the virus mutates into different strains, so the vaccine developers have to play catch-up.
But a group of American scientists have made a discovery that could lead to one vaccine targeting all the influenza strains.
The team is led by Dr Wayne Marasco from the Harvard Medical School.
WAYNE MARASCO: I believe the possibility of having a pan-therapy for influenza is certainly made more real and possible because of these discoveries.
ZOIE JONES: Put simply, the scientists have found a family of unusual human anti-bodies that repel the flu.
They began by giving mice lethal doses of the H5N1 bird flu, then injecting them with the antibodies.
Dr Robert Liddington is from the Burnham Institute in California.
ROBERT LIDDINGTON: We were surprised and actually delighted to find that these antibodies also neutralised a majority of other influenza viruses including most of the regular seasonal flues.
ZOIE JONES: In simple terms, regular anti-bodies usually bond to the outer surface of a virus but that surface mutates leading to different strains of the virus.
But the newly discovered anti-bodies bind to a much more stable region of the virus just below the surface and Dr Liddington says that region is like a complex molecular machine.
ROBERT LIDDINGTON: Our antibodies stop this molecular machine from operating and this is very powerful knowledge because it tells us how to make antibodies against the remaining flu strains that we can't hit at the moment.
ZOIE JONES: But making a vaccine from the anti-bodies is a complex process and the researchers say it could be three to five years away at least.
Even then, it won't be available to everyone.
Dr Liddington again.
ROBERT LIDDINGTON: This is not a vaccine at the moment that we're going to give to the entire population of North America. This is currently a drug that's going to be used judiciously and we would hope to quarantine a region and provide this anti-viral antibody, you know, to all the people within that region.
ZOIE JONES: The next step is for the anti-bodies to be tested on ferrets.
Then it could take up to two years before clinic trials on humans.
