Tonight we report on a big advance in flu research.  Like so many other stories on science this does not mean much of anything will happen in the next few months.  In this case some reassuring change should come in as soon as three years.  And. it could bring a much bigger achievement several more years down the line to end much of the danger from seasonal flu and the threat of massive death from a pandemic of bird flu.

Here is what scientists from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute (a Harvard teaching hospital), the Burnham Institute for Medical Research  in La Jolla, California and the U.S. Centers for Disease in Atlanta have done.  You can read details of the work on several sites:

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090222/full/news.2009.116.html

http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2009/flu_mab.htm

http://www.dana-farber.org/abo/news/press/2009/scientists-identify-human-monoclonal-antibodies.html

http://www.burnham.org/default.asp?contentID=688

The researchers have located an area on the influenza virus that appears not to mutate continuously as other parts of the flu virus does.  Those constant mutations are the reason we need a new flu vaccine every year and why sometimes it does not match the virus that is actually going around. 

The researchers have also found an antibody – a protein from the immune system -- that attacks that region.  When given to mice,  the antibody both prevents infection with several strains of human influenza (including the current H5N1 bird flu)  and actually treats animals that are already infected.  The beauty of this is that unlimited amounts of the antibody can be made with well understood manufacturing processes (it is called a monoclonal antibody).  Tests in humans will be needed to prove the antibody is safe and effective.  That seems like a very good bet.  If the antibody is safe and effective in people, very large amounts could be manufactured, stored and used to treat or prevent infection for a few weeks if a pandemic were to break out.  That is the part that appears to be about three years out.

Next the same information can be used to make a vaccine that would generate these antibodies naturally in the body.  Perhaps a person could be vaccinated once – or maybe every several years with a booster – and get immunity against all strains of the flu.  That is the fallout form  this story that is still many years off.  But these research results bring the possibility much closer.