New research may pave the way to rid the world of the flu forever.<\/p>\n
Every year, billions of doses of flu vaccine are administered to people around the world. But by the following year, the virus has mutated, and we need to create another vaccine to deal with the new strain.<\/p>\n
New research by Tijana Ivanovic, assistant professor of biochemistry at Brandeis University, and several colleagues suggests the flu virus may owe its persistence at least in part to string-shaped structures called filamentous particles.<\/p>\n
Ivanovic believes that developing an antiviral<\/a> treatment to target these particles could help rid the world of flu for good.<\/p>\n
The research appears in Nature Microbiology<\/em><\/a>. The findings also apply to emerging viruses, such as avian flu and Ebola, but not to COVID-19, which has a different structure.<\/p>\n
Her method led to the following picture of spherical and filamentous particles:<\/p>\n
The flu virus relies on spherical particles to initially infect our cells. But then the immune system kicks in or we receive a vaccine<\/a>, and that largely deactivates the spherical particles.<\/p>\n
But since influenza infects tens of millions of people worldwide every year, the odds are good enough for the virus to mutate into a new strain<\/a> in enough people to once again emerge as a global health threat.<\/p>\n
Source: Brandeis University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"