'Universal' vaccine for flu may be only three years away

Scientists believe they have cracked the problem of designing a "one fits all" jab using a new two-step approach to immunisation.

Early safety trials of the vaccine have already started and its effectiveness could be tested in patients as early as 2013.

Working with mice, ferrets and monkeys, the US team first primed the immune system with influenza DNA.

They then added a "booster" consisting of a regular seasonal flu vaccine.

The prime-boost combination was effective against flu viruses of different subtypes and from different years, the researchers reported in the journal Science.

Although the "priming" vaccine came from a 1999 virus, antibodies were generated that neutralised other strains.

Mice and ferrets produced antibodies not only against viruses dating from before 1999, including one that emerged in 1934, but also strains from 2006 and 2007.

The vaccine was also effective against more than the H1 subtypes of influenza A virus both the "prime" and "boost" elements were derived from.

These included highly virulent H5N1 "bird flu".

In other experiments, the scientists measured how well the prime-boost vaccine protected mice and ferrets against deadly levels of flu virus.

Three weeks after receiving the boost, 20 mice were exposed to high levels of 1934 flu virus and 80 per cent survived. When mice were given only the "prime" or "boost" elements alone, or a sham vaccine, all died.

Similar results were seen in ferrets, which are good predictors of flu vaccine effectiveness in humans.

Study leader Dr Gary Nabel, from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, said: "We are excited by these results. The prime-boost approach opens a new door to vaccinations for influenza that would be similar to vaccination against such diseases as hepatitis, where we vaccinate early in life and then boost immunity through occasional, additional inoculations in adulthood.

"We may be able to begin efficacy trials of a broadly protective flu vaccine in three to five years."

Flu viruses are notorious for their ability to mutate and become resistant to vaccines.

Antibodies target a lollipop-shaped flu virus surface protein called haemagglutinin (HA). But the structure of the protein's "head" mutates readily, allowing the virus to go undetected when it changes form.

The new vaccine generates antibodies that aim for the "stick" of the HA lollipop, which varies little from strain to

strain.

Antibodies that recognise the virus stem should be able to neutralise multiple strains, scientists believe.

HOPE FOR BLOOD CANCER VICTIMS

Researchers have developed a new treatment which offers hope to organ transplant patients who go on to develop blood cancer, it emerged yesterday.

A team at the University of Edinburgh has used cell therapy treatment in an attempt to combat the fact that one in 10 people who receive a donated organ develops cancer. The disease proves fatal in half of cases.

A study of the team's work, published in the journal Transplantation, found that patients who received the new treatment remained free from cancer for up to nine years.

Patients who developed blood cancer were treated with white blood cells – known as T cells – which patrol the body and identify and kill virus-infected cells.