Team hopes to start testing H1N1 vaccine within weeks
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 05/22/2009
Photo provided by William Jarvi
Professors Suresh Mittal and Xiaoxin Li do tests discover a vaccine for the H1N1 virus Tuesday.
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Purdue research teams hope to create a vaccine that will work against the 2009 H1N1 flu strain, formerly known as the swine flu.
Suresh Mittal, a professor of comparative pathobiology in the School of Veterinary Medicine, hopes to start testing a vaccine on mice in the next couple of weeks.
“We are trying to use a similar approach as we did with the H5N1 bird flu virus,” Mittal said. “The technology we are using is the same as the bird flu; the vaccine was given protection against different strains of the virus, and we are thinking of a similar approach in terms of mutations and infections.”
Mittal said there are many different variations of the flu, and the current vaccines and flu shots directly affect individuals in different ways.
“There are more than 50 types of strains, and we currently are using one of those strains,” Mittal said.
Usually, the seasonal flu vaccine is composed of three flu viruses which create antibodies to protect an individual from the flu. The immune cells take up antigens, or flu proteins, at the injection site. The antibodies fail to recognize this new virus.
Mittal’s research team has successfully cloned the antigen, hemoglutinin, that is prominent in the H1N1 virus. Once they have finished cloning, they will insert the materials into an adenovirus vector. Mittal said adenovirus is a suitable virus to work with for flu vaccines because it is incapable of replicating and doesn’t cause disease in humans.
Neetu Singh, a Ph.D. student in the department of comparative pathobiology, has been working with Mittal since 2005.
“From my point of view, the incidences and outbreaks that are happening in the media has given the swine flu an extra edge,” Singh said. “Although we should be prepared for the swine flu by next season, it’s not that extreme, especially since the flu season is almost ending.”
The bird flu is more lethal than the swine flu with a fatality rate of more than 60 percent.
“Both the bird flu and the swine flu start out having similar symptoms of the common cold, but the bird flu goes to a more severe level,” Singh said.
Three different strains were isolated over a seven-year period and worked on to successfully create a vaccine for the bird flu. Mittal hopes to see similar results with the 2009 H1N1 vaccine.