NIH GRANTS UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH $1.3 MILLION TO DEVELOP BIRD FLU VACCINE

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the NIH, has awarded the University of Pittsburgh a $1.3 million grant to develop an avian flu vaccine that could fight more than one strain of the virus effectively, according to the university.

In January, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine professor Andrea Gambotto and his colleagues reported in the journal Virology that their vaccine, which contains components of the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus but does not cause the disease, completely protected mice and chickens from infection after exposure to a naturally evolved strain of the virus.

Avian flu has killed 141 out of the 241 people infected with the virus, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and experts are afraid H5N1 will mutate into a form that can be passed from human to human. The virus "has a unique capacity to jump the species barrier and cause severe disease, with high mortality, in humans," the WHO said in late 2004. If H5N1 is beginning to mutate, more traditional vaccines may have limited effectiveness in a pandemic outbreak.

Since the vaccine contains live virus, it may be more effective in generating an immune response than avian flu vaccines prepared by traditional methods, which are made with viruses killed by heat or chemicals, and typically protect against only one strain of the virus, according to a statement by the university.

The experimental vaccine can also be produced much more quickly than through current methods because it is grown in cells, while traditionally developed flu vaccines are grown in fertilized chicken eggs and take a minimum of four to six months to make.