Latest flu virus Stories
New therapeutic prospect: Tipping the balance to encourage flu death Scientists have uncovered the flu's secret formula for effectively evolving within and between host species: balance. The key lies with the flu's unique replication process, which has evolved to produce enough mutations for the virus to spread and adapt to its host environment, but not so many that unwanted genomic mutations lead to the flu's demise (catastrophic mutagenesis). These findings overturn long-held assumptions...
New research may guide creation of targeted, more effective vaccinesA new understanding of a certain cell in the immune system may help guide scientists in creating better flu vaccines, report researchers from the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine and the Immune Disease Institute at Children's Hospital Boston (PCMM/IDI). Reporting online March 21 in Nature Immunology, they show, for the first time, that white blood cells known as resident dendritic cells (DCs) capture flu viruses and...
Antiviral drugs block influenza A viruses from reproducing and spreading by attaching to a site within a proton channel necessary for the virus to infect healthy cells, according to a research project led by Iowa State University's Mei Hong and published in the Feb. 4 issue of the journal Nature.Hong, Iowa State's John D. Corbett Professor of Chemistry and an associate scientist for the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, said the findings clarify previous, conflicting studies and...
To: NATIONAL EDITORS Contact: Vicki Friedman of The Clorox Company, +1-510-208-4271; or Lindsay Jones, Ketchum, +1-202-835-8870, for The Clorox Company Families Fighting Flu, Visiting Nurse Associations ofAmericaand The Clorox Company Partner to Educate and Vaccinate More Families Than Ever ATLANTA, Sept. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Only one in 10 parents is aware of the recommended age range for children to be vaccinated against the flu, according to a new survey. The Centers for...
Census of memory B cells reveals possible immune role of lungsNew research from a scientist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has uncovered information that may someday lead to a better flu vaccine.While the research is an early step toward a better vaccine, the findings from Mark Sangster, a professor of microbiology, track a little-understood immune system cell's response to an influenza infection and reveal new information about where it is most concentrated in the body.By...
