INFLUENZA...
commonly referred to as "flu", it is an infectious disease affecting birds & mammals caused by an RNA virus of the family Orthomyxoviridae. The flu is often confused with the common cold caused by the Rhino viruses. The flu causes 350,000 death per year and in pandemic years may kill millions.    An avian strain named H5N1 emerged in Asia in the 1990s, but has not yet evolved to spread to people. In April 2009 a novel strain dubbed "swine flu", also referred to as influenza A (H1N1) emerged in Mexico and WHO declared a world wide pandemic in June 2009.
	The Orthomyxoviridae viruses are identified by the 16 types of key surface proteins (hemagglutinins) that help the virus bind to host cells. In addition there are several varieties of viral surface neuraminidase proteins. These proteins are what the "H" and "N" stand for in viral designations such as H1N1.    Flu vaccines work by introducing a killed version of circulating virus strains, which trains the body's immune system to recognize and attack similar invaders in the future, but mutation changes in the viruses' proteins help it evade identification by the immune system.
The hunt for a universal flu vaccine, a single shot that would provide lifelong immunity, has been going on for decades, and many research teams have been attempting to make one. A series of recent discoveries by different groups of researchers have zeroed in on a highly conserved (nonmutated) region of the virus. This conserved region is the stalk of the virus's hemagglutinin protein, which is shaped like a mushroom. Researchers have used these findings to develop synthetic vaccine that has been effective in warding off several different types of influenza in mice. They made a synthetic peptide only about 60 amino acids long to mimic the stalk and when given to a mouse, it induced a cross-reactive immunoresponse, so a universal vaccine may be possible.      back