The following is an edited excerpt.
Annual flu vaccines are designed to build immunity to the three most common strains of the virus predicted to be circulating that year. New research from the University of Georgia recently published in the Journal of Virology suggests an improvement to the current model.
Current flu vaccines target surface proteins to develop resistance. He’s vaccine targets an internal viral protein, called a nucleoprotein, which is critical for virus replication. Because it doesn’t change as readily as the surface proteins, it’s a great target for a vaccine, He said.
Read the full press release here: Researchers develop universal flu vaccine