Flu vaccine shows promise in combating all strains

Scientists from the Vaccine Research Center and the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, have developed a new flu vaccination that is seen as a step toward combating all flu strains with a single vaccine. In a study published online Aug. 24 in Nature Medicine, researchers reported they had developed a nanoparticle vaccine with a stabilized HA stem from an H1N1 influenza virus. The stem of the virus is less likely than the head to mutate, and the stem remains constant across different strains of flu within a particular hemoglobin group, according to background information on the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases website. The site said in theory, vaccines could be effective against future seasonal strains and give at least partial protection against future pandemic strains. The new vaccine lacks the HA head region to more effectively stimulate antibodies that hitch themselves to the stem, according...