Universal Flu Vaccine Shows Promise

[Scott Bullock]

Universal Flu Vaccine Shows Promise

Scientists are one step closer to making sure you never have to worry about the flu again.

A group from Oxford University has developed a vaccine that could potentially protect us from all possible forms of the flu, even ones that don't yet exist. Traditional flu vaccines focus on preventing one particular strain of the flu from infecting you, but creating them is a long process that often only produces usable vaccine after the most urgent need for it has passed, as we saw with the H1N1 swine flu. Even if you do manage to get vaccinated against the strain that is going around, it will only be back the next year, having mutated intto a completely different strain, making last year's vaccine useless.

To try and prevent the problems of the current system, scientists have been working on creating a single vaccine that will increase your resistance to any strain of the flu.

Using the virus Vaccinia as a carrier strain, the Oxford team sent proteins present on all forms of the flu virus into the body. The Vaccinia virus, instead of simply playing host to the flu proteins, also triggers massive white blood cell growth, and the combination of flu proteins and white cell growth leads to a huge number of extra white cells, all trained to fight every form of the flu.

The effective difference between this vaccine and a normal vaccine is slight, but important. Normal vaccines prevent the flu virus from infecting you at all, prompting the virus to evolve more rapidly to ensure its survival. The new vaccine, because it is less effective against individual strains of flu, allows the virus to infect you but prevents any symptoms beyond a runny nose. Because of its moderate success in infecting you, the virus has less pressure to evolve. In fact, the periodic attempts at infection by the flu virus would act like a booster shot, updating our white cell's antibodies and knowledge of viruses.

The Oxford group is currently running human tests on the new vaccine to ensure it is safe to use.

Source: New Scientist [http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/02/early-success-for-universal-fl.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news]

Image [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Influenza_virus_research.jpg]

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[Danpascooch]

Is it safe to get such a boost in white cell count?

 

[Daemascus]

Yay, just one flu shot, ever! I hope that can adapt this to other virus as as well.

 

[Joshimodo]

Damnit.

How else can I cover work/university when a AAA game comes out?

 

[Sixcess]

Movies and gaming have taught me that a 'universal' vaccine will invariably mutate and start the zombie apocalypse.

Oh it sounds good on paper, but...

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Now that sounds totally epic.
I hope it works out as advertised, instead of angering the Virus Gods and prompting the influenza virus to go into killing mode or something...

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Forget the flu, go after the damn rhinovirus

 

[Harbinger_]

Isn't this the usual starting point for any sort of horror/zombie movie?

 

[MartianWarMachine]

As good as this is, it means that we're one step closer to winning the war on disease.

We don't want to win that war. I mean, *Points at avatar* What do you think happened to us those guys? They made themselves disease-free, and then next thing you know, BAM!

They all die of the flu!

Isn't this the usual starting point for any sort of horror/zombie movie?

This, too. Although I'm hoping for a nanobot-caused zombie apocalypse, so that EMP's can take them out.

...But what if they're shielded from EMPs? WE'RE ALL GOINNG TO DIE!

...And I think I went off-topic there. I'm sorry, I'll try to leave this thread alone now.

 

[Gahars]

This is a win win

Either no more coming down sick with a cold, or a zombie apocalypse

Either way, I'm game.

 

[Digikid]

Not a good thing honestly. We are made to ADAPT. If we never get sick again then our immunity will get weaker. The saying " That which does not kill you makes you stronger" is completely true.

Plus the current Flu Shot does not work anyways so one step closer means squat.

 

[vxicepickxv]

It's an interesting concept. I remember reading a while ago about a different take on this, where instead of attacking the new flu virus every year, they would attack the part of the flu virus that didn't mutate.

 

[RobCoxxy]

Shit, there goes all hope of getting a sick day.

 

[Sennz0r]

Now that does sound great, and hopefully it won't cause the flu virus to mutate into something worse. We'll see. For the time being these guys will be making some serious moneys if this works.

 

[Sennz0r]

Not a good thing honestly. We are made to ADAPT. If we never get sick again then our immunity will get weaker. The saying " That which does not kill you makes you stronger" is completely true.

Plus the current Flu Shot does not work anyways so one step closer means squat.

That's what I thought at first too, but this vaccin won't prevent infection, but would rather put your immune system into overdrive, eliminating the present virus while also allowing you to develop a resistance against other strains of the flu. You will still be ill for a day, but not as bad as usual.

EDIT: Sorry for the double post there.

 

[cynicalsaint1]

Sweet - I hate having to get yearly flu vaccines.

 

[Flac00]

Cool! A good idea, i do not completely understand how it would work, but ok.

 

[nYuknYuknYuk]

Because of its moderate success in infecting you, the virus has less pressure to evolve.

SOOO important. This has always been the loophole whenever I thought about something like this. If we were to have a vaccine to all flus that made you immune to them, mutated viruses that could get around the vaccine would just replace all the old ones, rendering the vaccine useless. But if this virus doesn't make you immune and you still get infected(albeit without symptoms and not for very long) the virus is still completing its goal of reproducing. So there is no reason that a mutation that makes it immune to the vaccine would spread, as it wouldn't have a better chance to survive than the older virus.

Even if this particular vaccine fails to produce the results that the researchers intend, I'm sure this idea of how to do it will go on to the final product, whenever that may be.

 

[V8 Ninja]

Sounds like a good idea, but the thought of putting our bodies into an overdrive state of white blood cell production doesn't exactly sound like it will be a great thing...

 

[ShadowKatt]

Yeah....I'm a bit wary of this. The human immune system when it's working properly doesn't need to be vaccinated(much. While it is entirely possible to survive things like ebola and polio, the mortality rates are high enough that it's worth the risk of vaccination). However, these vaccinations are no substitute for the actual first-hand experience with the bacteria and viruses that make us sick. And I'm sure there are going to be people that are going to quote me saying "You just want people to suffer!", but the fact is that you develop immunity by getting sick. Your body learns the disease and learns to combat it with W blood cells, lymphocytes, and antibodies. Vaccinations introduce a weakened version of whatever disease it is and your body only learns to fight the weakened version, leaving you vulnerable when the actual virus shows up. Furthermore, vaccinations only really work on those that already have a strong immune system. Introduced into the body of someone with an already compromised immune system, it can be just as deadly as giving a healthy person the full virus.

I'm not saying that vaccine research isn't important, but I worry that people are going to treat this as a magic bullet and then we're going to have an epidemic when a new strain of influenza comes out, one that's more resistant/antagonistic or different enough for the vaccine to not apply.