A Cal Poly Pomona instructor and a team of Los Angeles-based researchers say they are close to creating a vaccine against the avian flu, which has caused 70 deaths in Asia and which scientists believe has the potential to cause a worldwide pandemic.
Medical microbiologist Jill Adler-Moore and the team at the small Los Angeles firm Molecular Express Inc., have developed a vaccine that seems to be working in mice and has gained the attention of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Dave Dagle, a CDC spokesman.
“They are working on a universal influenza vaccine that has shown promise,” Dagle said. “It’s in an early stage, but we are interested in partnering with them.”
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The death of an influenza (step by step) :
- Identify a protein in influenza viruses that tends not to change from strain to strain
- Find the genetic code that produces the protein
- Splice the information into bacterial DNA
- Put the DNA into a bacteria cell, which will reproduce and make copies of the protein
- Harvest the protein
- Insert the protein into tiny fat spheres called liposomes
- Inject the liposomes into an organism - The body’s immune system looks in the liposomes and identifies the protein as a foreign body
- The immune system destroys the protein and remembers it while equipping the body to quickly destroy it again, creating immunity
- If any influenza virus enters the body, the immune system quickly recognizes the protein and kills it.
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