An annual flu jab is essential if you want to protect yourself against spending a few weeks of every year bed-ridden and achey. But now a lifetime flu vaccination may be on its way -- slowly but surely.
As New Scientistreports, two research groups have manufactured a stable, injectable solution containing the H1N1 stalk protein -- a protein which could stop our immune systems from "forgetting" the flu virus from year to year.
The flu virus works by carrying large, globular "decoy" proteins to attract the attention of the human immune system. These decoys are put into flu vaccines to prepare our immune systems for potential attack -- but as the name suggests, these proteins mutate and shapeshift, so the body doesn't recognise them after a few years.
However, lurking beneath these devious decoys are "stalk" proteins: the much more structurally stable proteins that are responsible for replicating and infecting us. The problem is, these stalk proteins have proved overwhelmingly tricky to engineer in a lab -- until now.
Unfortunately both potential vaccines have achieved mixed results in animal trials. The first group, from the Netherlands-based Crucell Vaccine Institute and the Scripps Research Institute in California, inoculated mice against lethal doses of the H1N1 flu and H5N1 bird flu – but in monkeys, it only helped to reduce the fever caused by low doses of H1N1.
The second group, from the Maryland-based National Institutes of Health, triggered immune responses from tested rats and ferrets, but only four of the six ferrets survived -- and their immune system reactions are thought to be closer to humans. In other words, the vaccine, though stable and safe to administer, still isn't strong enough to prevent animals coming down with flu in the first place.
Despite this, experts believe that the breakthrough could signal that a universal flu vaccine is on its way. Virologist John Oxford, from the University of London, commented: "This is a leap forward compared to anything done recently. They have good animal data, not just in mice but in ferrets and monkeys too. And they've done it with the bird flu virus H5N1. It's a very good stepping stone."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
