SEATTLE - A small Seattle biotech company is one step closer to developing a universal flu vaccine.
Theraclone has discovered a common weakness in virtually all strains, past and present, of the flu virus. They've also found a rare antibody able to target that weakness. Together, it could mean a universal flu vaccine in the not-so-distant future.
"The virus changes all the time and it's constantly multiplying and mutating. So what we're looking for are parts of the virus that never change and antibodies that recognize the parts of the virus that never change," says Matthew Moyle, Theraclone's Chief Scientific Officer.
Scientists screened 100 healthy humans for antibodies that could attach to that unchanged area of the flu virus that virtually all strains have in common.
"The hope is to use these antibodies to try to make a vaccine that will focus on eliciting the same type of antibody in people who are vaccinated," says Moyle.
Moyle admits the antibodies are more of a stop-gap measure and expensive. But they would afford doctors the ability to treat high-risk groups and could be effective if a pandemic emerged.
Moyle says they're at least a year out from human clinical trials. If those prove successful, more clinical trials would follow before a vaccine with those antibodies would be available.
Theraclone's research paper appeared in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It's dedicated to David Fanning, Theraclone's president and CEO who died suddenly on June 14.
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