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Yale Research: Stopping The Next Swine Flu

 

 

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One of the `up’ sides to the H5N1 scare and the H1N1 pandemic has been the increase in research into influenza, and other emerging infectious diseases it has generated.  

 

Wars (hot and cold), along with pandemics – it seems - often spur advances in scientific knowledge.

 

The space race of the 1950s and 1960s was a much about the cold war as it was about exploration and the advancement of scientific knowledge. 

 

And yet today nearly every facet of our lives – from medical telemetry to computer chips to the Internet – can be traced back to the manned space program. 

 

A pity mankind often needs these sorts of motivators.   We ought to do scientific research simply because it helps makes the world a better place to live in.   

 

But I digress . . . .

 

 

The fruits of this pandemic – in terms of scientific data collected – will be studied for years to come.   Over time, they may lead to new treatments, new preventatives, and a better understanding of the inner workings of a variety of pathogens.

 

Scientific research can open unexpected doors.   You never know where a new discovery, or a better understanding of our universe, will lead.

 

From the Yale Daily News we get some early details of one example of this sort of research.    Not specifically about influenza, but hopefully applicable to future pandemic viruses.

 

Will this research stop the next swine flu? 

 

Maybe, maybe not. 

 

But anything that advances our knowledge of how viruses work has got to help in that regard.

 

 

Stopping the next swine flu

By Carol Hsin

Staff Reporter

Published Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The evolutionary path of a virus can help scientists predict whether it may be the next swine flu virus, Yale researchers have found.

 

Post-doctoral fellow Nadya Morales, who works in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Paul Turner’s lab, has shown that viruses that have evolved to infect multiple hosts are more likely to shift hosts. Her research findings, currently in review, may be used to prepare for epidemics like swine flu and avian flu by creating vaccines before the virus infects humans, Morales said.

 

“From this experiment, we have direct evidence for what scientists have suspected about the success of emerging pathogens,” Turner said.

 

Previously, scientists had little evidence to prove that viruses that can infect multiple hosts would be more able to infect new hosts, Turner said. Since swine flu and avian flu were caused by RNA viruses, which are known for high mutation rates, Morales used laboratory-created strains of a certain RNA virus carried by insects as a model to test this theory. When introduced to new host cells, specialized strains that were grown on either only human cancer cells or only dog cells grew less than a generalized strain that grew alternately on both species.

 

“The experiment supports the idea that generalists would do better in a new environment,” Morales said.

 

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