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Friday, July 29, 2011

Virologists Working On Super Antibody





There are so many viruses out there to catch, virologist are constantly researching and studying (cause it's their job) ways to defeat the nasty ones. They are looking at a super antibody that could possibly lead to a universal vaccine.

Virologists and researchers around the world have been on a quest to develop a universal vaccine, that will attack a common denominator of all influenza that does not mutate in anyway.

Scientists isolated an antibody called F16 this targets a protein found on the surface of all influenza A viruses. After taking samples of immune cells from 100,000 patients, who had a flu vaccine or the flu.

"We've tried every subtype of influenza A and it interacts with them all, We eventually hope it can be used as a therapy by injecting the antibody to stop the infection." says Sir John Skehel MRC scientist at Mill Hill. "We eventually hope it can be used as a therapy by injecting the antibody to stop the infection."



It is a well known fact that those people who have suffered viruses develop an immunity to them, well it has also been suggested that those who have had swine flu could have developed a super immunity to other infections.


Mice that had lethal doses of the H1N1 virus, were then given the antibody two days later and survived. Professor John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary, University of London, said: "It's pretty good if you've got one against the whole shebang, that's a good step forward."

However it will be a few more years before the structure of the antibody can be used to make a vaccine.

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