Researchers close in on universal, lifetime flu shot

A research breakthrough in the Northwest could lead to a universal vaccine against the flu.

When H1N1 swept into North America three years ago, making young people severely ill, Professor John Schrader at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, says his team began working to develop antibodies from people who had recovered from the swine flu.

That’s when Schrader made an important discovery. The antibodies that fought swine flu, also worked against the more deadly avian or bird flu. And it got even better.

“Our antibodies against swine flu that bound to bird flu also bound to different batches of the standard seasonal flu vaccine,” said Schrader.

For 50 years, scientists thought the human immune system could make antibodies against only the variable part of the flu virus. That’s why the flu shot changes every year with changing flu varieties.

Schrader then took swine flu virus antibodies induced in humans and injected them into mice. The vaccine protected the mice, which had been given lethal injections of bird flu.

“That indicated that the swine flu vaccine induced protective antibodies against the constant part of the flu virus.” The implication, said Shrader, is that a universal, lifetime flu vaccine is possible.

Details of Schrader’s research are published in the journal Frontiers of Immunology.

“I believe that our research shows that small variations in the standard flu vaccine can give lifetime immunity to all strains of influenza, even those flu viruses that will emerge in the future,” predicted Schrader.

Professor Schrader will attend a conference of flu vaccine experts in Washington, D.C. next month. He suggests that a one-time, universal flu vaccine is possible in the next five years.

The flu kills thousands of people in the U.S. annually and hundreds of thousands of people each year worldwide.