Latest Hemagglutinin Stories

Ads in Craigslist lead to potential medical advance Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and Sea Lane Biotechnologies have solved the co-crystal structure of a human antibody that can neutralize influenza viruses in a unique way. The antibody recognizes the crucial structure that flu viruses use to attach to host cells, even though previously this structure had been thought too small for an antibody to grab effectively. The immune protein manages to hit this precise spot by using...

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online One drug maker took to the stage on Monday in San Francisco to announce some very encouraging and positive results at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC). According to the results from preclinical studies, Visterra, Inc. may have found a viable preventative drug against Influenza. Called VIS410, this drug is an engineered human antibody which can be used to ward off Influenza infections, as...

The work is a key step toward 'universal' vaccine and therapies against flu A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and Crucell Vaccine Institute in the Netherlands describes three human antibodies that provide broad protection against Influenza B virus strains. The same team had previously reported finding broadly neutralizing antibodies against Influenza A strains. The isolation of the new broadly neutralizing antibodies, which was reported the journal Science's...

Connie K. Ho for RedOrbit.com Researchers at Monash University recently developed a paper-based device that writes blood type as text and can be used by emergency-response teams in humanitarian disasters. The study, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, describes how the sensors uses the ABO system, categorizing blood types as A, B, AB, or O and positive or negative. The system designates which antigens are in the blood (i.e. A blood has A antigens, B blood has B antigens, and...

Connie K. Ho for RedOrbit.com A controversial report regarding avian flu research was finally published on May 3 in the journal Nature. The research, which studies how the avian H5N1 influenza spreads among mammals, had been contested by a government review panel who wanted to stop the report from being published. According to Med Page Today, the study finds four key mutations in a gene of the H5N1 avian flu that helps it adjust to mammals. The debate about the publication of the...

Model could be useful in planning process for seasonal influenzaResearchers have developed a statistical model for projecting how many people will get sick from seasonal influenza based on analyses of flu viruses circulating that season. The research, conducted by scientists at the National Institutes of Health, appears today in the open-access publication PLoS Currents: Influenza.Building on other research that has shown that severity of infections with the Influenza A virus is related to...

Biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have pinpointed molecular changes that helped allow the global spread of resistance to the antiviral medication Tamiflu (oseltamivir) among strains of the seasonal H1N1 flu virus.The study"”led by David Baltimore, Caltech's Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and postdoctoral scholar Jesse D. Bloom"”appears in the June 4 issue of the journal...

The findings explain why young people have been more vulnerable than older individuals in recent pandemicLA JOLLA, CA "“ A team of scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and other institutions has solved the structure of a key protein from the virus that caused last year's "swine flu" influenza epidemic. The structure reveals that the virus shares many features with influenza viruses common in the early 20th century, helping to explain why, in general, older individuals...

Rice, BCM team finds weakness in H1N1's method for evading detection by the immune systemThe H1N1 influenza virus has been keeping a secret that may be the key to defeating it and other flu viruses as well.Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have found what they believe is a weakness in H1N1's method for evading detection by the immune system.Comparing its genetic sequences going all the way back to the virus's first known appearance in the deadly "Spanish...

New methods of studying avian influenza strains and visually mapping their movement around the world will help scientists more quickly learn the behavior of the pandemic H1N1 flu virus, Ohio State University researchers say.The researchers linked many powerful computer systems together to analyze enormous amounts of genetic data collected from all publicly available isolated strains of the H5N1 virus "“ the cause of avian flu. They then developed a new Web-based application that will allow...