Team uncovers cellular responses to bird flu vaccine

New research from Vanderbilt eavesdrops on gene expression in human immune system cells before and after vaccination against bird flu. Reported in the journal PLOS One, the study exposes cellular responses associated with a vaccine constituent called AS03, short for adjuvant system 03. Using massive computation, the investigators pursue a systems biology approach, providing a new wealth of detail about vaccine responses and data for the generation of new hypotheses. “This study signifies a new and different way to study vaccines. We’ve established that it can be done; it’s complex but it’s feasible. I think in the future this is the way vaccines will be studied,” said one of the authors, Leigh Howard, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of Pediatrics. The type of bird flu the team studied, subtype H5N1, is far more lethal in humans than seasonal flu. AS03 is known to markedly boost the protection afforded by pandemic flu vaccines, including those for...