Important progress in the search for a universal influenza vaccine – PS today

The flu is now spreading in Sweden and around the world, it happens every year and every year the vaccine has to be adapted. Now, however, there is good hope for a universal flu vaccine.

Scientists recently succeeded in vaccinating animals against all 20 known strains of influenza A and B virus. She wrote that this is an important step towards achieving the goal of creating a single vaccine against all types of influenza CNN.

Many influenza viruses spread between animals

Current influenza vaccines protect the body against four virus strains, two strains of influenza A and two strains of influenza B.

Each year, the composition of these vaccines changes depending on which strains of virus are thought to cause disease for the most people in the coming season.

Some strains of the virus circulate between humans and many spread between animals.

Fears of viruses jumping from animals

Scientists worry that viruses will pass from animals to humans, exposing us to viruses our immune system doesn’t recognize. This is where a universal flu vaccine will come in handy.

Such a vaccine would prepare our bodies so that our immune systems would recognize these viruses if we were exposed to them, thus protecting us from serious diseases.

The vaccine will be tested in humans in 2023

Currently, several universal flu vaccines are in various studies, one of which is at the National Institutes of Health.

the studying They tested the vaccine on mice and rodents, and the researchers aim to test the vaccine in humans next year.

The researchers used mRNA technology to produce the vaccine, the same technology used in some vaccines against Covid-19, but research with a universal flu vaccine began even before the pandemic, in 2017.

The vaccine contains the HA protein

Scientists have tried to find structural parts of different influenza viruses that are similar to teaching the immune system to make antibodies against those parts.

This will allow the vaccine to work against many different influenza viruses. Instead, the vaccine now being tested contains genetic instructions for making the HA hemagglutinin proteins from all 20 virus strains.

Similar to the spike protein of the covid virus

The hemagglutinin protein protrudes from the surface of the influenza virus like the spike proteins that the COVID-19 virus is known for.

“What we found is that these vaccines produce very high levels of antibodies against all 20 subtypes. And we found that the antibodies reacted to both the globular head at the top of the HA as well as the hemagglutinin column, which is a little bit lower,” he says. Scott Hensleyto CNN.

He is the lead author of the new study and a microbiologist at the Penn Institute for Immunology.

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