US: Flu research could improve vaccines

A team of researchers at Princeton University in New Jersey, US, has made a breakthrough that could affect the way pharmaceutical companies produce vaccines for flu and other viruses.

In light of the recent global H1N1 swine flu epidemic, the theoretical findings are timely and focus on the interaction between a virus and a person's antibodies that work to defend the body.

The study, funded in part by the research branch of the US Department of Defense, was conducted while major drugs companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur develop new and more powerful vaccines.

Molecular biology professor and researcher Ned Wingreen explained the theory came down to this: inside a human, antibodies compete with each other to defend the body. As they jockey for a spot on the virus's surface, ineffective antibodies often win the fight and effective antibodies are then blocked, so the person becomes sick. This makes current vaccines fairly hit or miss, the research team said.

While today's vaccines are designed to be as close to the anticipated virus as possible, the Princeton team suggests vaccine producers should design vaccines to look slightly different than the anticipated virus. This way, useless antibodies would fail to latch onto the vaccine, while effective antibodies would spot the enemy and be left to fight actual viral attacks.

Wingreen stressed the Princeton team would not create its own vaccines but rather it hopes vaccine producers will incorporate the university's findings into future vaccine development.

"Our best bet is to express our ideas as clearly as we can and hope someone will find them interesting and do the necessary experiments to verify or disprove them."

GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur are both in the process of developing H1N1 vaccines.