Fighting Influenza on Its Own Territory

A group of experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Cambridge, says that its latest study on influenza's ability to mutate under pressure has revealed the phenomenon underlying it, called antigenic drift. The work could lead to the development of a final vaccine against the flu.

The work should also mark a shift in focus, from producing a chemical that wipes out the virus to one that does not trigger the evolution of a fitter, more infectious strain of the virus. The MIT team was led by MIT professor of biological engineering Ram Sasisekharan.

“Incomplete vaccination could be causing a lot of these problems and therefore effective vaccinations are key to limiting drift,” the team leader says. Details of the study were published in the December 19 online issue of Scientific Reports, an open-access scientific journal published by Nature.