Synopsis: Domenii: Health: Health generale: Health policy:


www.nanomagazine.co.uk_category&id=172&Itemid=158 2015 00045.txt.txt

showed applying small quantities of antibiotic to the surface of medical devices, from small dental implants to hip replacements, could protect patients from serious infection.

Treating the surface of medical devices would have a greater impact on patients considered at high risk of infection such as trauma victims from road traffic collisions or combat operations,

eep bone infections associated with medical devices are increasing in number, especially among the elderly. s well as improving the quality of life,


www.nanotech-now.com 2015 000036.txt

Northshore University Healthsystem (Northshore) and Boston Medical center, was published online in PLOS ONE. Backman has been studying cell abnormalities at the nanoscale in many different types of cancers,

Dr. Hemant K. Roy professor of medicine and Chief of gastroenterology at Boston Medical center and an author of the study."

###The study authors are Hemant K. Roy of Boston Medical center; Charles B. Brendler, Karen L. Kaul, Brian T. Helfand, Chi-Hsiung Wang, Margo Quinn, Jacqueline Petkewicz and Michael Paterakos, of Northshore University Healthsystem;


www.nanotech-now.com 2015 000093.txt

Administering a vaccine to protect against infection would overwhelm the patient's immune system. However, if he or she has the option of receiving an antiviral to eliminate the infection,


www.nanotech-now.com 2015 00556.txt.txt

. professor of surgery (biomedical engineering) at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health & Sciences Technology, report the development of a novel microfluidic chip that is specifically designed for the efficient capture of CTC clusters


www.nanotech-now.com 2015 00712.txt.txt

News and information A step towards a type 1 diabetes vaccine by using nanotherapy June 10th, 2015investigation of Optical Properties of Quantum dots in Presence of Magnetic, Electrical Fields June 10th,

2015discoveries A step towards a type 1 diabetes vaccine by using nanotherapy June 10th, 2015investigation of Optical Properties of Quantum dots in Presence of Magnetic, Electrical Fields June 10th,

2015announcements A step towards a type 1 diabetes vaccine by using nanotherapy June 10th, 2015investigation of Optical Properties of Quantum dots in Presence of Magnetic, Electrical Fields June 10th,

2015interviews/Book reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers A step towards a type 1 diabetes vaccine by using nanotherapy June 10th,


www.nanotech-now.com 2015 00763.txt.txt

and are affiliated with Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois.##For more information, please click herecontacts:


www.nanotech-now.com 2015 00878.txt.txt

where the local health care infrastructure might not be able to support the level of research


www.nanotech-now.com 2015 00893.txt.txt

#Bonelike 3-D silicon synthesized for potential use with medical devices: Semiconducting silicon spicules engage tissue like a bee stinger Abstract:

Researchers have developed a new approach for better integrating medical devices with biological systems. The researchers, led by Bozhi Tian,


www.nanotech-now.com 2015 00913.txt.txt

2015bonelike 3-D silicon synthesized for potential use with medical devices: Semiconducting silicon spicules engage tissue like a bee stinger July 8th,


www.nanotech-now.com 2015 00928.txt.txt

The protection allowed the researchers to safely give a dose 16 times higher than they could with the formulation now used in cancer clinics,


www.nanowerk.com 2015 04415.txt.txt

#Freshly squeezed vaccines (Nanowerk News) MIT researchers have shown that they can use a microfluidic cell-squeezing device to introduce specific antigens inside the immune systems B cells,

and implementing antigen-presenting cell vaccines. Such vaccines, created by reprogramming a patients own immune cells to fight invaders,

hold great promise for treating cancer and other diseases. However, several inefficiencies have limited their translation to the clinic,

and only one therapy has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. While most of these vaccines are created with dendritic cells,

a class of antigen-presenting cells with broad functionality in the immune system, the researchers demonstrate in a study published in Scientific Reports("Ex Vivo Cytosolic Delivery of Functional Macromolecules to Immune Cells")that B cells can be engineered to serve as an alternative.

A new vaccine-preparation approach Dendritic cells are the most naturally versatile antigen-presenting cells.

when for cell-based vaccines: They have a short lifespan, they do not divide when activated,

which has limited options for B-cell-based vaccine programming. Using Cellsqueeze circumvents this problem and by being able to separately configure delivery and activation,

researchers have greater control over vaccine design. Gail Bishop, a professor of microbiology at the University of Iowa Carver School of medicine and director of the schools Center for Immunology and Immune-Based Diseases, says that this paper presents a creative new approach with considerable

potential in the development of antigen-presenting cell vaccines. The antigen-presenting capabilities of B cells have often been underestimated,

in this new study, demonstrates promise as a versatile platform for creating more effective cell-based vaccines.

Future steps The researchers say they now plan to refine their B-cell-based vaccine to optimize distribution and function of the immune cells in the body.

A b-cell-based approach could also reduce the amount of patient blood required to prepare a vaccine.

patients receiving cell-based vaccines must have drawn blood over several hours each time a new dose must be prepared.

and cost required to engineer cell-based vaccines. We envision a future system, if we can take advantage of its microfluidic nature,

you could do it in your hospital or your doctors office. As the biology and technology become further refined

run it through a bedside device that has the antigen you want to vaccinate against, and then youd have the vaccine,

Szeto says s


www.nanowerk.com 2015 04436.txt.txt

#Nanotechnology helps protect patients from bone infection Leading scientists at the University of Sheffield have discovered nanotechnology could hold the key to preventing deep bone infections,

showed applying small quantities of antibiotic to the surface of medical devices, from small dental implants to hip replacements, could protect patients from serious infection.

Treating the surface of medical devices would have a greater impact on patients considered at high risk of infection such as trauma victims from road traffic collisions or combat operations,

eep bone infections associated with medical devices are increasing in number, especially among the elderly. s well as improving the quality of life,


www.nanowerk.com 2015 04509.txt.txt

in association with Montpellier Regional University Hospital and Stanford university, have transformed bacteria into"secret agents"that can give warning of a disease based solely on the presence of characteristic molecules in the urine or blood.

and require sophisticated technologies that are often available only in hospitals. This is where biological systems come into play.

in association with Professor Eric Renard (Montpellier Regional University Hospital) and Drew Endy (Stanford university), applied this new technology to the detection of disease signals in clinical samples.


www.nanowerk.com 2015 04514.txt.txt

Air pollution is the world largest single environmental health risk, causing one in every eight deaths according to figures released last year by the World health organization.


www.nanowerk.com 2015 04517.txt.txt

#Team develops transplantable bioengineered forelimb in an animal model (w/video) A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has made the first steps towards development of bioartificial replacement limbs suitable for transplantation.


www.nanowerk.com 2015 04543.txt.txt

A team of undergraduate students also contributed to an early glove design as part of his ES227 Medical device Design Course.

who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical school and Boston Children's Hospital and Professor of Bioengineering AT SEAS."


www.nanowerk.com 2015 04815.txt.txt

to $289 billion annually in unnecessary health care costs from additional hospital visits and other issues.


www.nanowerk.com 2015 04830.txt.txt

according to a recent study led by researchers at The Ohio State university Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital


www.nanowerk.com 2015 04856.txt.txt

researchers at University of Michigan Life sciences Institute and University of Texas Southwestern Medical center have discovered. The findings,


www.nanowerk.com 2015 05025.txt.txt

and transparent material perfect for everything from water bottles to medical devices. But recently, that soaring success has soured:


www.nanowerk.com 2015 05029.txt.txt

and an expert in nanoengineering for health care and medical applications. hen you think about field deployment,


www.nanowerk.com 2015 05069.txt.txt

foldable and lightweight energy storage device that provides the building blocks for next-generation batteries needed to power wearable electronics and implantable medical devices (ACS Central Science,"Self-Assembled Multifunctional Hybrids:


www.nanowerk.com 2015 05075.txt.txt

#New material opens possibilities for super-long-acting pills (Nanowerk News) Medical devices designed to reside in the stomach have a variety of applications,

Now, researchers at MITS Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have created a polymer gel that overcomes this safety concern


www.naturalnews.com 2015 00579.txt.txt

Possessing emergency first aid and medical skills was also extremely important, as many people suffered injuries from being hit by debris in flood waters.


www.naturalnews.com 2015 00622.txt.txt

#Hospitals encouraging new mothers to breastfeed by scrapping free formula programs (Naturalnews) A major shift seems to be taking place in how the conventional medical system views appropriate feeding protocols for newborns.

A recent study found that many hospitals across the country are now ditching free infant formula handouts in an attempt to encourage new mothers to exclusively breastfeed their babies rather than pump them up with soy protein, corn syrup solids,

the paper looked at the prevalence of hospitals and birth centers distributing infant formula discharge packs to breastfeeding mothers in the U s. between 2007 and 2013.

hospitals are implementing new no-formula protocols to promote breastfeeding over infant formula. Epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Nelson, M d,

which is administered every two years to all hospitals with registered maternity beds. The survey includes questions about how many infant formula discharge packs are distributed to new mothers before these women are discharged from the hospital.

With a nearly 98 percent response rate, the survey is considered a highly credible indicator of infant formula distribution trends among hospitals and birth centers.

Based on the responses gathered the team calculated that infant formula distribution rates dropped by an astounding 41 percent between 2007 and 2013, falling from 72.6 percent to 31.6 percent.

Similarly, teaching hospitals have abandoned almost completely the practice, with only 5. 5 percent of them giving out free formula in 2013.

Six years prior in 2007,63 percent of teaching hospitals handed out free infant formula. The most dramatic decline occurred at hospitals with the highest numbers of babies delivered.

In 2013, less than 12 percent of high-volume delivery hospitals handed out free infant formula. In this case"

high volume"refers to hospitals that deliver at least 5, 000 babies annually. Infant formula companies are just like Big Pharma:

they give free samples to hospitals to gain customers A major issue with handing out free infant formula to new mothers is that it encourages these women to avoid breastfeeding their children,

maintain researchers. Nearly 80 percent of new mothers start out breastfeeding their children, according to the data.

"Hospitals and health care systems are places we look to for guidance on health, "says Dr. Jennifer Nelson,

"When hospitals distribute formula to breastfeeding mothers, it signals that formula feeding is as good as breastfeeding."

"Part of the problem is that infant formula companies actively distribute samples to hospitals as a way to boost sales

and the connection to community support,"adds Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, a professor of pediatrics at Cooper University Hospital in New jersey,

"Evidence shows that providing new mothers with free formula in hospitals or as part of discharge packs (free gifts) decreases overall and exclusive breastfeeding


www.naturalnews.com 2015 00813.txt.txt

They've recently even decided that California should cover the health care costs of the children of illegal immigrants.

free health care for everyone, unlimited debt spending on entitlement programs, magical waterfalls of free H2o falling out of the clouds, and so on.


www.naturalnews.com 2015 00903.txt.txt

as guinea pigsvicious vaccine culture war now being waged against informed, intelligent Americans who seek to protect their children from deadly side effects131 Ways for an Infant to Die:

Vaccines and Sudden Deathnaturalnews exclusive: Michigan government unleashes armed raids on small pig farmers, forces farmer to shoot all his own pigs/**CONFIGURATION VARIABLES:


www.nature.com 2015 000062.txt

MRSA has spread from hospitals into the community and in 2013, there were 480,000 new cases of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis worldwide,

It is impossible to say how well the results will hold up in the clinic, but teixobactin shows promise,


www.neurogadget.com 2015 00028.txt.txt

which was developed originally for use in hospitals, has been adapted for in-car use and detects vibrations from the driver heart beat and breathing. s we develop more autonomous driving technologies,


www.neurosciencenews.com_neuroscience-topics 2015 00246.txt.txt

The device was implanted surgically in Sorto brain at Keck Hospital of USC in April 2013


www.neurosciencenews.com_neuroscience-topics 2015 00273.txt.txt

Professor Hugh Perry, who chairs the Medical Research Council Neuroscience and Mental health Board said: his work builds on our understanding of the genetic causes of schizophrenia unravelling how a combination of genetic faults can disrupt the chemical balance of the brain. cientists in the UK,

as part of an international consortium, are uncovering the genetic causes of a range of mental health issues, such as schizophrenia. n the future,


www.neurosciencenews.com_neuroscience-topics 2015 00288.txt.txt

Aix-Marseille and the German Mouse Clinic teamed up to investigate the initiation process of dendritic spines.


www.neurosciencenews.com_neuroscience-topics 2015 00360.txt.txt

The research was conducted by teams from Mcgill University, The Hospital for Sick Children (Sickkids), and Duke university,

said Michael Salter, M d.,Ph d.,Head and Senior Scientist, Neuroscience & Mental health at Sickkids and Professor at The University of Toronto,


www.newscientist.com 2015 01215.txt.txt

Miguel Nicolelis at Duke university Medical centre in Durham, North carolina, showed that stimulating the somatosensory cortex an area that processes feelings of touch let monkeys feel the texture of virtual objects without physically touching anythingmovie Camera.


www.newscientist.com 2015 01295.txt.txt

and proof of principle,"says Harald Ott of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who grew the limb."


www.newscientist.com 2015 01308.txt.txt

as a result of an infection and those triggered by a vaccine. Instead the technique might be useful in outbreaks of new viruses. Understanding how our immune system responds to other viral fragments might reveal clues as to


www.newscientist.com 2015 01436.txt.txt

Today, the UK National Health service announced it plans to start transfusing people with artificial blood by 2017 the first clinical trials of this kind anywhere in the world.


www.newscientist.com 2015 01559.txt.txt

and Italy, aiming to compare its readings with those from traditional medical devices. Consumer technology that can read signals from the body to interpret underlying physical

and mental health is on the cusp of becoming part of everyday life. For example, Cardiio, originally developed at the Massachusetts institute of technology


www.newscientist.com 2015 01573.txt.txt

The vaccination drive has been dogged by political corruption rumours the vaccine was contaminated with HIV and violence nine health workers were killed by terrorist group Boko Haram in 2013.

Nigeria has come close to eradicating the disease several times before, only for it to re-emerge. But this is the longest the country has gone without reporting a case,

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are making progress with their vaccination campaigns, but too many children are missed, partly due to the difficulties in reaching people in rural areas with poor infrastructure,

A lack of international funding for the vaccination campaigns is also a problem, says Rosenbaum.


www.npr.org_sections_research-news 2015 00267.txt.txt

#Ebola Vaccine Hailed As'Game Changer'In Fight Against The Virus Doctors Without Borders is calling it a"champagne moment."

"In a small trial, an experimental vaccine protected 100 percent of participants who were at high risk for the virus

vaccine or medicine,"says Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general for health systems and innovation at the World health organization,

"The vaccine, called rvsv-ZEBOV, was developed by the Public health Agency of Canada. Previous studies showed it was safe.

The vaccine stops Ebola in its tracks, Kieny says.""When we talked with our colleagues who are responding to Ebola cases,

And we vaccinate, and the cases seem to disappear.'"'"In fact, there are so few cases in Guinea right

now that Kieny and her team couldn't use the standard method for testing a vaccine.

The strategy uses what's called ring vaccination. When a case crops up, the team rushes to scene andgives the vaccine to people who are close to the sick person those who are at high risk of getting the virus."So this can be the neighbors, the family, the coworkers,

"Kieny says.""This forms what is called a ring. These are the people that form the community around the case."

000 people in these so-called rings who were eligible for vaccination. They divided them up into two groups.

About half got vaccinated immediately, and the others had to wait three weeks for the shot.

In the group that got the vaccine immediately, no one got Ebola.""No cases at all. Zero,"Kieny says."

The problem is there were only 16 cases of Ebola in the group that didn't get the vaccine immediately.

That's way too small of a number to say how well the vaccine works,

But statistical analyses suggest the vaccine's efficacy is at least 70 percent, Kieny says which is still good enough to stop the spread of the disease."

preliminary results of this vaccine trial from Guinea,"says Dr. Jesse Goodman, an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University, who once led vaccine development at the U s. Food and Drug Administration.

More data are needed to nail down the vaccine's efficacy. And there were a few issues with the design of the experiment that could have skewed the results."

"the strength of the difference between the groups that were vaccinated early and late suggests strongly to me that this vaccine is working. i


www.npr.org_sections_technology 2015 00421.txt.txt

#The Future Of Cardiology Will be shown In 3-D How can you tell the difference between a good surgeon and an exceptional one?

But hospitals can buy it for research and educational purposes, such as exploring triggers that cause heart attacks.

Dassault hopes that medical device makers will also use the Living Heart Project's technology for research and development.

Recruiting Partners in Health care For the Living Heart Project, Levine has recruited so far 45 partners,

including the Mayo Clinic, Stanford university and the University of Oxford. Levine said the Food and Drug Administration initially wanted to take a"watch

and medical device makers could pull the plug on promising research if the simulation shows a negative result."


www.pbs.org_wgbh_nova_next_ 2015 00146.txt.txt

#Highly-Effective Ebola Vaccine Could Stymie Future Outbreaks Over 27,000 cases and 11561 deaths. The statistics that tell the story of the most recent Ebola outbreak are stark,

That the conclusion of a study on an Ebola vaccine developed in a 10-month sprint by the Public health Agency of Canada

000 individuals in Guinea, are welcome news. Kimberley Steeds, an Ebola vaccine trial team member, in the Ebola vaccine laboratory, Donka Hospital in Conakry,

The vaccine is consists of a modified version of a different virus called VSV, which infects cows

The trials employed the same strategy used to contain smallpox called ing vaccination. When a person comes down with the disease,

and vaccinate anyone likely to come in contact with the patient, creating a ring of protection that hopefully keeps the virus contained

The new study evaluated the vaccine effectiveness by dividing recipients into two randomly assigned groups.

Half of the study participants received the vaccine as soon as one person they had been in contact withhether it was a relative, patient,

The other half received the vaccine after a delay of three weeks. In the 2, 000 subjects receiving the immediate vaccination treatment, not one person contracted Ebola.

Based on these results, the immediate vaccination regimen was offered to all participants starting on July 26. Even with the vaccine apparent efficacy, the trial will continue so researchers can gather more information to license the vaccine for widespread use.

The study was orchestrated by a partnership including THE WHO, the Ministry of Health of Guinea Doctors Without Borders,

and many others, comprising a monumental scientific and logistical effort. Here James Gallagher, reporting for the BBC:

The sheer scale of the 2014-15 outbreak led to an unprecedented push on vaccines and a decade work has been condensed into around 10 months.

but the vaccine trials offer, for the first time, hope that such grim statistics will never be seen again n


www.perfscience.com 2015 00197.txt.txt

Also, it provides the capacity to work outside controlled environments like medical centers factories or laboratories.


www.perfscience.com 2015 00257.txt.txt

Luis Paz-Ares, doctor at the Hospital Universitario Doce de Octubre in Madrid and lead researcher of the trial, said,


www.perfscience.com 2015 00319.txt.txt

Stephen Elledge, an HHMI investigator at Brigham and Women's hospital and his colleagues made use of Virscan in order to screen the blood of 569 people in the US, Thailand, South africa and Peru.


www.photonics.com 2015 01753.txt.txt

#Continuously Disinfecting Light Fixtures Commercialized Designed to continuously disinfect the air and surfaces in hospitals,

The lights can be used to inactivate a range of microorganisms that are known causes of hospital-acquired infections,

While other methods of disinfecting health care environments are effective, they are episodic and results are short-lived because bacteria immediately repopulate the space,

a teaching hospital operated by the National Health service. The technology and its effectiveness have been the subject of more than 20 peer-reviewed academic publications and 30 conference presentations since 2008.

and recently granted Kenall licensing rights for the North american health care market. Kenall plans to start commercial production of the technology immediately.

The company provides a clinical partners program to assist hospitals in evaluating the performance and cost-savings potential of the technology.


www.photonics.com 2015 01807.txt.txt

a biomedical and health care technology group specializing in commercializing technologies from universities and research institutes.


www.popsci.com 2015 01147.txt.txt

bionic limbs are chiefly medical devices for now, designed to restore function. That a brain-controlled bionic leg would also promote muscle growth is stranger,


www.popsci.com 2015 01435.txt.txt

the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that medical device company Wicab is allowed to market a new device that will help the blind ee.

regulatory pathway for some low-to moderate-risk medical devices that are not substantially equivalent to an already legally-marketed device, according to the press release.


www.popsci.com 2015 01538.txt.txt

Stopping the transmission of HIV is ne of the greatest public health achievements possible says Margaret Chan,


www.popsci.com 2015 01577.txt.txt

according to local public health officials. Over a one-year period, the researchers released the modified males into the local environment


www.popsci.com 2015 01745.txt.txt

Flu vaccines effectively give your immune system a antedposter based on researchersbest predictions for the mutation that year.

This work suggests that future flu vaccines could include this new kind of antibody that would be able to fight the most powerful types of influenza viruses

That might make for stronger flu vaccines --and possibly reduce the shot's frequency to once every few years e


www.popsci.com 2015 01862.txt.txt

#New Ebola Vaccine Shows 100 Percent Effectiveness In Early Tests At this time last summer, the horrific and often fatal disease Ebola was ravaging West Africa in the deadliest outbreak

But in an extremely promising medical advance, scientists are now saying that an experimental Ebola vaccine with 100 percent effectiveness has been developed.

A paper published today in The british medical journal Lancet reports that the vaccine which has been tested in Guinea

since March 2015, has shown extraordinary results so far, with 4, 123 people voluntarily vaccinated and all safe from the disease.

The joint studyonducted by international teams from the World health organization, the Guinean Health Ministry, Doctors Without Borders, the Norwegian Institute of Public health and the nonprofit Epicentre research center, among many othersas been 100 percent

effective in vaccinated individuals. his is an extremely promising development, said Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director General of the World health organization (WHO),

what known as a ing vaccination strategyto test the vaccine efficacy. This involves inoculating all known contacts of an infected individual,

John-Arne Røttingen, Director of the Division of Infectious disease Control at the Norwegian Institute of Public health, also noted in THE WHO's statement that it was this strategy in particular that has allowed for them to follow the dispersed epidemic in Guinea

more conclusive evidence is necessary to prove the vaccine ability to protect larger populations from the disease, according to THE WHO. This trait,

known as erd immunity, is especially vital in order for the vaccine to be truly successful. The trial faced some obstacles in the beginning,

because volunteers knew they were receiving the actual vaccine. This raised a number of questions on ethical and scientific grounds,

It is expected that this vaccine will likely be used to stop future outbreaks rather than vaccinate whole populations.

The speed and efficiency with which this vaccine was developed and tested in the midst of a global medical emergency is unparalleled.


www.psfk.com 2015 00437.txt.txt

and the threat of discrimination a trip to the clinic can bring. At press time

and individuals who get a positive result should undergo a confirmatory test at a clinic i


www.reuters.com_news_technology 2015 01000.txt.txt

Hebrew University Medical centers, said the electrocardiogram (ECG) provides the added value to the device.""I think the new achievement of Nuvo is in the field of detection of the ECG traces of the fetus,


www.reuters.com_news_technology 2015 01547.txt.txt

and they are now looking for partners to lead a product development cycle to turn it into a medical device ready for market t


www.science20.com 2015 00695.txt.txt

who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of medicine.


www.science20.com 2015 00829.txt.txt

) This method poses substantial risks to the health care workers responsible for blood collection, transport, and testing,

explains Dr Nira Pollock, senior author and Associate Medical Director of the Infectious diseases Diagnostic Laboratory at the Boston Children Hospital. his new test,

In this study, the researchers compared the diagnostic accuracy of the new RDT against the benchmark RT-PCR test (altona Diagnostics) being used for clinical diagnosis in the field reference laboratory run by Public health England at Port

particularly those that store vaccines and other medical products. Published in The Lancet. This study was funded by a gift from the Abundance Foundation (Stephen Kahn.


www.science20.com 2015 00902.txt.txt

#Toward A Universal Flu Vaccine Flu vaccines can be shot a in the dark-they must be given yearly

New research suggests it may be possible to harness a previously unknown mechanism within the immune system to create more effective and efficient vaccines against this ever-mutating virus. In a Cell paper,

"While the conventional flu vaccine protects only against specific strains, usually three of them, our experiments show that by including modified antibodies within the vaccine it may be possible to elicit broad protection against many strains simultaneously,

"says senior study author Jeffrey Ravetch, professor of Molecular genetics and Immunology at Rockefeller University.""We believe these results may represent a preliminary step toward a universal flu vaccine,

one that is effective against a broad range of the flu viruses."It was known already that chemical modifications to antibodies'Fc region altered their interactions with immune cells,

The virus makes for a difficult target for vaccines because its strains are so diverse,

most flu vaccines in the United states are formulated to target a total of three or four viral strains:

The strains are selected based on public health experts'predictions for the coming flu season. But sometimes they are wrong,

A universal flu vaccine has become something of a holy grail, and a number of strategies have been proposed to create it.

These regions go on form complexes with vaccine antigens, which then modulate the evolving vaccine response.

First, the researchers vaccinated healthy volunteers with a seasonal flu vaccine containing an inactivated strain of the H1n1 virus. They then tracked the volunteers'immune responses via blood samples,

keeping an eye out for chemical modifications to antibodies against the hemagglutinin protein. About seven days after the vaccination, they saw a spike in sialylated antibodies, meaning sialic acid,

an important signaling molecule, had been added at a specific spot on the Fc region. The greater the sialylation

the better a person's response to the vaccine. To tease apart how this chemical modification improves the immune response,

The result of the higher affinity was broad protection against H1 subtype influenza viruses. The researchers then used this knowledge to improve the vaccine itself.

They modified the H1n1 vaccine so it contained not only protein from the virus itself, but also sialylated antibodies against that protein."

which a vaccine containing sialylated antibodies elicits broadly protective antibodies, could potentially be harnessed to reduce the tremendous morbidity

"We are now looking into applying this strategy toward improving existing vaccines; ideally, this would result in a vaccine that provides life long immunity against flu infections. s


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