Human trials of universal flu vaccine begin

Flu vaccine: Clinical trials of a new vaccine that could protect against multiple types of flu are beginning at Oxford University….’............Existing flu vaccines work by inducing protective antibodies to proteins on the outer surface of the influenza virus. These proteins differ between strains and change over time, so each vaccine only works against a specific strain.

The Oxford scientists led by Dr Gilbert are taking a new approach. They have developed a novel vaccine that targets internal proteins essential to the flu virus that change very little over time or between strains.

‘By targeting the internal proteins of the virus, we can come up with a universal flu jab,’ explains Dr Gilbert. ‘The same vaccine would work against all seasonal flu and protect against bird flu.’


www.ox.ac.uk/media



Malaria: The method involves two viruses, a common cold virus (adenovirus) and a pox virus, both of which have been engineered to be harmless in themselves, but to produce a protein on their surfaces which matches one found on the outside of the malaria parasite.

When an injection of the adenovirus was followed eight weeks later by the pox virus, the results in mice were clear-cut.

The vaccines produced two separate types of powerful immune response to these malaria "antigens", hopefully priming the immune system to respond aggressively when confronted by the malaria parasite later on.

In mice, it reduced the growth of the parasite by between 70% and 85%. r Simon Draper, from Oxford University, said: "In the end, the results were startling, and we could use these viruses to induce very high levels of antibodies for the first time." BBC 6 Sept.