New study to look at how people develop resistance to flu

An international project into flu immunity could help develop better medications and vaccines to prevent severe disease. Imperial researchers will investigate how people develop resistance to the flu in an international £1.76m study backed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The new project will combine human challenge and vaccine studies to investigate how our immune response in the respiratory tract respond differently to influenza infection and vaccination, which could ultimately help to improve vaccines and treatments. The study is one of two projects funded by NNF, with teams in London and Denmark using the same methods to maximize comparability of results. In the Imperial-led study (called ‘GERMINATE’) researchers will focus on how immunity against influenza is generated in the nose and lung, analyzing the immune response to infection alongside the immune response generated by the licensed nasal spray influenza vaccine, Fluenz. Led by Professor Chris Chiu from the Department of Infectious Disease, the work will build...