Vaccine Effective Against Avian Flu

FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers announced they have genetically engineered an avian flu vaccine from the critical components of the deadly H5N1 virus that completely protected mice and chickens from infection. This virus has thus far killed 80 people, devastated bird populations in Southeast Asia and Europe and caused for billions in damage through the world." Here's hoping it works on us, too.

Comments

Re:Virus Fund, let's do it.

[(negative video)]

Biology is not my field, but the thing that bothers me is that the virus has to mutate before it will readily transfer between humans.

Not necessarily. What can happen is that avian and human flu can infect one host at the same time. Even by viral standards, influenza is sloppy, so new viruses would be made with genes from both types. If a combination virus includes an avian virulence factor and a human transmissibility factor, you get the Martian Death Flu.

Is a vaccine developed now going to be effective against a virus that doesn't exist yet?

The odds are decent it will. Most genes contain "conserved" regions, stretches of DNA that have to be just so for the gene to work. (Most mutations there break the chemistry.) Even over centuries of mutation, those regions change very little. If you have antibodies to those, your immune system will have a leg up when you get infected, which might mean the difference between misery and death.

For a combination virus, a vaccine ought to be quite effective. It's just a matter of administering avian flu proteins in a vaccine. Unfortunately, most current flu vaccines are made by an obsolete process where the virus is grown in chicken eggs, and avian flu kills the eggs right away. We desperately need turn-key industrial systems for making vaccines. Culturing viruses is too prone to failure.