#vaccine-development

#vaccine-development

Influenza viruses regularly accumulate small genetic changes, necessitating yearly updates to vaccines, and can also make sudden leaps through major genetic changes and reassortment.

The team at Texas Biomedical Research Institute is gearing up in full protective gear before entering a BSL-3 facility to work with H5N1, SARS-CoV-2, and tuberculosis.

"Generation Gold Standard is a paradigm shift, extending vaccine protection beyond strain-specific limits and preparing for flu viral threats not just today's, but tomorrow's."

This trend may continue unless there is a reduction in the underlying factors that increase risk for invasive [group A strep] or there is an effective preventive measure such as a vaccine.

In this Phase I study for an experimental norovirus vaccine, we found it safely stimulated immune responses in older adults, crucial for combating severe infections.

Mark Davis, a microbiology and immunology professor at Stanford, emphasized that the current flu vaccine has shown effectiveness rates between 20% and 80%, mainly due to immunity being largely directed towards a single strain. He indicated this limitation poses a significant challenge as various flu strains circulate annually, thus necessitating innovative approaches to enhance vaccine efficacy across many more variants.