PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Bacteria seek to topple the egg as top flu vaccine tool

2010-12-07
(Press-News.org) Only the fragile chicken egg stands between Americans and a flu pandemic that would claim tens of thousands more lives than are usually lost to the flu each year.

Vaccine production hinges on the availability of hundreds of millions of eggs – and even with the vaccine, flu still claims somewhere around 36,000 lives in the United States during a typical year. Now scientists have taken an important step toward ending the dominance of the oval. In a paper published in the Dec. 6 issue of the journal Vaccine, scientists showed that an experimental flu vaccine grown entirely in bacteria – a process that bypasses the egg completely – works well in people, triggering an immune response that would protect them against the flu.

The study of 128 healthy people ages 18 to 49 at the University of Rochester Medical Center was led by John Treanor, M.D., an expert on flu vaccines who has helped lead efforts to create and test new ways to make flu vaccine more quickly and less expensively. The vaccine – which is free of bacteria itself – is made by New Jersey-based VaxInnate Inc., which funded the study.

"There are a number of problems with using eggs to produce flu vaccine," said Treanor. "It's a very specialized product. It's hard to make more eggs in a hurry – you only get them as fast as hens lay them. They're not easy to manipulate, and it can be challenging to get the flu virus to grow within an egg. The flu vaccine system would be more flexible and reliable if we didn't have to rely on them."

Scientists have been exploring a number of alternatives to eggs – creating doses to cover just the U.S. population requires millions of eggs that, if laid end to end, would just about encircle the continental United States.

Bacteria have not been high on the list of options, even though they have the capability of producing vaccine more quickly and less expensively than many other methods. Most efforts to use bacteria have faltered due to basic differences in the way that bacteria process proteins compared to more complex eukaryotic cells, which have a nucleus. Proteins are a crucial component of flu vaccine, and keeping the key proteins folded correctly has been a challenge in bacteria, which lack cellular machinery critical to the process.

"It was long accepted as dogma that you could not make a flu vaccine in bacteria that could stimulate a protective immune response in humans," said Treanor. "But in this vaccine, the surface flu protein hemagglutinin was made by E.coli in such a way that it folded correctly, stimulating an authentic immune response. It's almost surprising that this is possible."

VaxInnate addressed the problem by focusing on just one small key protein of hemagglutinin that can be correctly refolded after synthesis in bacteria. The small protein is enough to spur the immune system because it was attached to an adjuvant – a compound designed to strengthen the vaccine by stimulating a more robust immune response. Adjuvants currently are not part of U.S. flu vaccines, though they are used in other countries and as parts of other vaccines. Usually, adjuvants are simply mixed into a vaccine, but the latest work offers a new method. A bacterial protein called flagellin was actually fused to a molecule that mimics the flu's hemagglutinin protein – a combination designed both to draw the attention of the immune system and immediately amplify it in one step.

The amount of material in the experimental flu shot under study is just a fraction of the amount used in a licensed flu shot. The most successful tests were done with one or two micrograms of vaccine, much smaller than today's licensed 15-microgram shot. About half of participants got a strong immune response at 1 microgram, and about 80 percent got a strong immune response at 2 micrograms.

INFORMATION: Also taking part in the study from the Medical Center were Christine Hay, M.D., assistant professor of Medicine; nurse practitioner Carrie Nolan; and technician Theresa Fitzgerald. Authors from VaxInnate included David Taylor, Lynda Tussey, Ge Liu, Uma Kavita, Langzhou Song, and Alan Shaw.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

NIH scientists identify mechanism responsible for spreading biofilm infections

2010-12-07
What: Scientists from the National Institutes of Health have discovered how catheter-related bacterial infection develops and disseminates to become a potentially life-threatening condition. The study, which included research on Staphylococcus epidermidis in mice implanted with catheters, could have important implications for understanding many types of bacterial biofilm infections, including those caused by methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Biofilms are clusters of microbes that almost always are found with healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) involving medical ...

Iron deficiency in soil threatens soybean production

2010-12-07
Madison, WI December 6 2010 -- An expansion of soybean production into areas where soybean has seldom, if ever, been grown can be problematic for some farmers. Soils having high pH values and large amounts of calcium and/or magnesium carbonate are notoriously iron deficient. Iron deficient soils in the North Central United States are estimated to reduce soy bean production by 12.5 million bushels every year. John Wiersma, a researcher at the University of Minnesota Northwest Research and Outreach Center at Crookston, concluded a study examining the effect of nitrogen based ...

UNC expert: Combining exenatide with insulin may be 'best result ever' for diabetes patients

2010-12-07
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A new study finds that combining the newer diabetes drug exenatide with insulin provides better blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes than insulin alone and helps promote weight loss. "This study may be the best result ever for patients whose diabetes is inadequately controlled on a combination of pills and insulin," said John Buse, MD, PhD, lead author of the study and chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. "Until now, it was inconceivable that you ...

Personalized vaccine for lymphoma patients extends disease-free survival by nearly 2 years

2010-12-07
(ORLANDO, Fla.) – A personalized vaccine is a powerful therapy to prevent recurrence among certain follicular lymphoma patients, according to the latest results of ongoing research led by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The new findings show that when these patients – whose tumors are marked by a specific protein that may be present in up to half of people with this type of cancer -- receive a vaccine made from their own tumor cells, disease-free survival is improved by nearly two years, compared with patients who receive a placebo. Based on the new analysis, ...

Learning the language of bacteria

2010-12-07
MADISON — Bacteria are among the simplest organisms in nature, but many of them can still talk to each other, using a chemical "language" that is critical to the process of infection. Sending and receiving chemical signals allows bacteria to mind their own business when they are scarce and vulnerable, and then mount an attack after they become numerous enough to overwhelm the host's immune system. This system, called "quorum sensing," is an interesting example of sophistication among microbes, says Helen Blackwell, an associate professor of chemistry at the University ...

Mammogram sensitivity depends on menstrual cycle

2010-12-07
SEATTLE—Try to schedule your screening mammogram during the first week of your menstrual cycle. It might make breast cancer screening more accurate for pre-menopausal women who choose to have regular mammograms. This recommendation comes from an article published online December 3 in Radiology by Diana Miglioretti, PhD, a senior investigator at Group Health Research Institute. Dr. Miglioretti and her co-authors are working on an issue at the heart of recent controversies about breast cancer screening mammograms. In November 2009, new recommendations—including that women ...

Metabolism models may explain why Alzheimer's disease kills some neuron types first

Metabolism models may explain why Alzheimers disease kills some neuron types first
2010-12-07
Bioengineers from the University of California, San Diego developed an explanation for why some types of neurons die sooner than others in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. These insights, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology on November 21, come from detailed models of brain energy metabolism developed in the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. The Alzheimer's insights demonstrate how fundamental insights on human metabolism can be gleaned from computer models that incorporate large genomic and proteomic ...

Fewer guessing games for lung cancer patients

2010-12-07
Reston, Va. — A study published in the December issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine identified positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) scans as a potentially useful tool for predicting local recurrence in lung cancer patients treated with radiofrequency ablation (RFA). RFA, which uses localized thermal energy to kill cancer cells, is increasingly used as an alternative treatment for patients unable to undergo surgery or other therapies to treat lung cancer. "This study reinforces the utility of 18F-FDG-PET imaging in cancer detection and follow-up ...

Imitating someone's accent makes it easier to understand them

2010-12-07
In conversation, we often imitate each other's speech style and may even change our accent to fit that of the person we're talking to. A recent study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that imitating someone who speaks with a regional or foreign accent may actually help you understand them better. "If people are talking to each other, they tend to sort of move their speech toward each other," says Patti Adank, of the University of Manchester, who cowrote the study with Peter Hagoort and Harold Bekkering from Radboud ...

Missouri grapes hold key to improving world grape production

2010-12-07
In a few years, a sip of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Pinot Noir may include a taste of the "Show-Me" State. The state grape of Missouri – the Norton variety grown at many vineyards around the state – is resistant to powdery mildew, a fungal pathogen that affects winemaking grapes around the world. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri are working to identify valuable genes from the Norton grape for eventual transfer into other grapes to make them less susceptible to mildew, decrease fungicide use and increase world-wide grape production. Walter Gassmann, ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Circle versus rectangle: Finding ‘Earth 2.0’ may be easier using a new telescope shape

Metformin changes blood metal levels in humans

Long-term anticoagulation discontinuation after catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation

Fractional flow reserve–guided complete vs culprit-only revascularization in non–ST-elevation myocardial infarction and multivessel disease

Participation of women in cardiovascular trials from 2017 to 2023

Semaglutide and tirzepatide in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction

Changes in biology of internal fat may be the leading cause of heart failure

Transcatheter or surgical treatment of patients with aortic stenosis at low to intermediate risk

Promising new drug for people with stubborn high blood pressure

One shot of RSV vaccine effective against hospitalization in older adults for two seasons

Bivalent RSV prefusion F protein–based vaccine for preventing cardiovascular hospitalizations in older adults

Clonal hematopoiesis and risk of new-onset myocarditis and pericarditis

Risk of myocarditis or pericarditis with high-dose vs standard-dose influenza vaccine

High-dose vs standard-dose influenza vaccine and cardiovascular outcomes in older adults

Prevalence, determinants, and time trends of cardiovascular health in the WHO African region

New study finds that, after a heart attack, women have worse prognosis when treated with beta-blockers

CNIC-led REBOOT clinical trial challenges 40-year-old standard of care for heart attack patients

Systolic blood pressure and microaxial flow pump–associated survival in infarct-related cardiogenic shock

Beta blockers, the standard treatment after a heart attack, may offer no benefit for heart attack patients and women can have worse outcomes

High Mountain Asia’s shrinking glaciers linked to monsoon changes

All DRII-ed up: How do plants recover after drought?

Research on stigma says to just ‘shake it off’

Scientists track lightning “pollution” in real time using NASA satellite

Millions of women rely on contraceptives, but new Rice study shows they may do more than just prevent pregnancy

Hot days make for icy weather, Philippine study finds

Roxana Mehran, MD, receives the most prestigious award given by the European Society of Cardiology

World's first clinical trial showing lubiprostone aids kidney function

Capturing language change through the genes

Public trust in elections increases with clear facts

Thawing permafrost raised carbon dioxide levels after the last ice age

[Press-News.org] Bacteria seek to topple the egg as top flu vaccine tool