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Japan to make vaccines for multiple strains of flu
Traditional flu vaccines create antibodies which act against flu viruses, but since the surface of the viruses frequently mutate, different vaccines have to be made every year.
The findings by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, chemical maker NOF Corp, and two Japanese universities that peptides could induce cellular immunity was presented last month at Japan's National Cancer Center.
A part of the research was reported in the Journal of Immunology in 2006.
The findings could also potentially be applied to create drugs to treat AIDS, tumors and other diseases, Tetsuya Uchida, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, said.
In the laboratory, the group has been working with mice, but the next step to develop such an almighty flu vaccine is to prove its safety for humans, he added.
"It usually takes about five years to develop vaccines for clinical use. But the bird flu is an emerging issue and we would like to develop this as soon as possible," Uchida said.
Shares of NOF Corp, which provided liposomes for the study, surged 20.8 percent to 464 yen against benchmark Nikkei's 2 percent drop.
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=japan-to-make-vaccines-fo
TOKYO (Reuters) - A group of Japanese researchers has developed a substance that could help make flu vaccines effective for multiple strains of the disease, including the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases said on Monday.
The development of such substance suggests that the process of creating new flu vaccines each year, reformulated in order to match mutations in influenza strains, may end in the near future.
The group found that when a peptide derived from the influenza virus, coupled with liposomes, is induced into an organism, it could act against cells infected by multiple strains of influenza, such as the H1N1, H3N2, and H5N1 viruses.Traditional flu vaccines create antibodies which act against flu viruses, but since the surface of the viruses frequently mutate, different vaccines have to be made every year.
The findings by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, chemical maker NOF Corp, and two Japanese universities that peptides could induce cellular immunity was presented last month at Japan's National Cancer Center.
A part of the research was reported in the Journal of Immunology in 2006.
The findings could also potentially be applied to create drugs to treat AIDS, tumors and other diseases, Tetsuya Uchida, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, said.
In the laboratory, the group has been working with mice, but the next step to develop such an almighty flu vaccine is to prove its safety for humans, he added.
"It usually takes about five years to develop vaccines for clinical use. But the bird flu is an emerging issue and we would like to develop this as soon as possible," Uchida said.
Shares of NOF Corp, which provided liposomes for the study, surged 20.8 percent to 464 yen against benchmark Nikkei's 2 percent drop.
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=japan-to-make-vaccines-fo
