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by Samantha H

Did you know that flu shots contain a small amount of the influenza virus? If we are given the right amount of the virus, our bodies learn how to fight the flu off and it makes it harder for us to develop the flu. Our old vaccinations were made in chicken eggs because a fertilized egg contains less than a teaspoon of what will eventually be put in a flu vaccine. But this process usually takes six months. And if the vaccine is not working as well as it should, the scientists have to spend six months growing another vaccine in chicken eggs, which could be too late for some people who die of the flu.

Now, scientists have a new and faster way of creating flu vaccines – caterpillar cells! The new way takes only two months and it could save many lives. Scientists infected caterpillar cells with baculovirus, a type of insect disease that mostly affects larva. Baculovirus infects the caterpillar’s cells and forces them to create the proteins it needs to spread. The scientists changed the virus so it produced an influenza protein instead of a baculovirus protein. Every year, there is an emphasis on different parts of the influenza strain. Since it is so much faster to make, using caterpillar cells instead of chicken eggs could actually make it easier for scientists to figure out what the strain is that year and they could make changes to the vaccine in two months rather than six.

In an experiment led by John Treanor, a vaccine clinical researcher, 640 volunteers (mostly women) were tested to see if the caterpillar cell vaccine really worked better than our old vaccine. A third of the group had an old vaccine, another third had a small dose of the vaccine, and the rest had a strong dose of the vaccine. (The strong dose provoked a strong immune system response without any side effects.) Seven people with the old vaccine got sick, two people with the small dose got sick, and no one from the strong dose group got sick. Even though the vaccine proved effective, Treanor does not think it will be the ultimate way to make flu vaccines.

Would the results of John Treanor’s experiment been altered if he used more men in his study? Do we have to use caterpillar cells or can we use another kind of insect?

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 9:33 pm and is filed under Student Post, Medical Marvels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.