influenza news from FierceBioResearcher

A strain of bird flu has adapted to create a new version which increases the chances of a human pandemic, according to scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Read more...

Scientists at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute used a new computer modeling program supported by the NIH to simulate how a lethal pandemic flu outbreak could hit a modern American city that Read more...

Japanese researchers have developed a new approach to make flu vaccines that are able to combat multiple strains of influenza, including strains of the bird flu virus, according to Japan's National Read more...

Researchers at Texas A&M University are participating in developing a treatment for influenza that forms a jelly when sprayed into the nose. Even though trial treatments are being used to treat Read more...

A collaboration between the Scripps Research Institute and IBM to find new antidotes to flu before new mutations surface is making some initial progress. Dubbed Project Checkmate, scientists are Read more...

More Research

Researchers have sequenced a portion of the genome of Neanderthals, which shows how a slight variation in DNA separates modern man from our closest extinct relative. It also shows that fossil DNA can be sequenced. Article

A group of researchers in Sydney, Australia say that enclosing embryonic stem cells in tiny capsules made from seaweed …

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Federal scientists at the NIAID have developed a vaccine that protects mice against the killer 1918 influenza virus. But they have also created a technique for identifying antibodies that neutralize the bird flu virus, a tool that could help contain future pandemic flu strains. These findings are important, the researchers say, to understanding and preventing the recurrence of the H1N1 influenza virus that caused the 1918 pandemic and to protecting against virulent flu strains in the …

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A leading WHO scientist concludes that the H5N1 strain of bird flu shows all the earmarks of being able to repeatedly mutate as it develops resistance against any antiviral drugs that are deployed against it. Mike Perdue says the only two anti-viral drugs currently believed to be at least somewhat effective against the virulent bird flu--Tamiflu and …

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