# 1053
Last night I lamented over the superficial, and frankly, hyperbole filled reporting on the `breakthrough' in H5N1 research at the NIH. The wire services were filled with reports that a great new vaccine was on the horizon, and that we may be able to `beat bird flu before it starts'.
Here are just a few of the headlines:
New bird flu vaccine may prevent outbreak MSNBC 23:40 9-Aug-07
Hope for Bird Flu Vaccine ABCNEWS.com 23:28 9-Aug-07
New vaccine may beat bird flu breakout Stuff.co.nz 23:16 9-Aug-07
New vaccine may beat bird flu IOL 09:12
New vaccine may beat bird flu before it starts (Reuters) Yahoo! US 22:17 9-Aug-07
While the discoveries at the NIH are certainly impressive (as I noted here) we are a long way off from having a vaccine in hand to fend off a pandemic.
Of greater immediate interest to me was the disclosure that scientists at the NIH had managed to create a more `human adaptable' H5N1 virus. One that would cleave readily to human receptor cells.
THAT seemed to me, to be the big story here.
Well, after yesterdays' heady celebratory reporting, we are starting to get some reportage on this facet of the research.
This article, by Jeff Nesmith, provides a far more reasoned look at the story. I've just provided an excerpt, follow the link for the full story.
Mutant flu virus may show how pandemic could start
By Jeff Nesmith
Cox Washington Bureau
Published on: 08/10/07Washington —- Government scientists have created mutant viruses that may hold the key to understanding how the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu might change into a disease that spreads from human to human.
<snip>
Except in the relatively small number of cases where people have gotten bird flu, hemagglutinin in H5N1 will not bind to the "spikes" on human cells. The virus just slips off the human cells.
Using genetic engineering, Nabel's group made changes in the H5N1 form of hemagglutinin to see if the changes would cause it to bind to human cells. The mutated viruses were then sent to Emory, which maintains a "library" of molecules that appear on human cells.
By adding the mutated viruses to these molecules, the Emory group quickly established that the viruses attached themselves to a particular human molecule. It took only two of these mutations to change H5N1 into a virus that would readily lock onto human cells, Nabel said.
"While nobody knows if and when H5N1 will jump from birds to humans, [the researchers] have come up with a way to anticipate how that jump might occur and ways to respond to it," said Dr. Elias Zerhouni, National Institutes of Health chief.
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