University of Pittsburgh researchers have developed a vaccine that provides full protection against a highly lethal strain of avian influenza in mice and chickens. The animals that had been immunized by the vaccine all survived lethal doses of Vietnam strain of the bird flu virus, according to a study published today online in the Journal of Virology.

This vaccine – made from bits of bird flu DNA packaged inside a harmless cold virus — has the potential to be manufactured much more quickly and cheaply than the experimental vaccine being tested now by the federal government, said Dr. Andrea Gambotto, a professor of molecular genetics and biochemistry at Pitt and lead author of the study.

The vaccine also demonstrated the added advantage of activating a powerful arm of the immune system that the current vaccine doesn’t, Gambotto said.

That is important because it might mean the vaccine would provide protection against the rapidly evolving bird flu virus as it mutates into new strains.

Gambotto and other scientists at Pitt collaborated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in this study.

They are seeking federal dollars to test the vaccine in people.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pmupdate /s_417589.html

Albert this is not a traditional vaccine, prepared in fertilized chicken eggs.  Instead, this is a a recombinant vaccine grown in cell cultures, which are unlimited in supply.  Additionally, the speed to produce such a vaccine is greatly enhanced.  “It takes a little over a month for us to develop a recombinant vector vaccine compared to a minimum of several months via traditional methods,” according to Dr. Gambotto. “This capacity will be particularly invaluable if the virus begins to mutate rapidly, a phenomenon that often limits the ability of traditional vaccines to contain outbreaks of mutant strains.”

 

 

Yes don't we all love Government dollars whether it be for DoD contracts which I work on, grants which my sister lives and dies for being a drug researcher herself, etc.  At any rate, there will be every  lab in the country cashing in on this one.  I wish them all luck in their endevours.  You will see them come out of the woodwork now.  Labs you have never heard of from every University in the country.  At any rate, we will waste millions but if just one or a few of these labs produce solid results it will certainly be worth humanities life.

Yes I work with cutting edge technologies in the missile industry.  We have very efficient streamlined and automated processes and technology and the Government spends 7 billion dollars a year purchasing it.  

Edited by walkdog

This is potentially great news, I am hoping that it works and production can be accelerated for all of us.

I am not ready to buy it.  They mean to say that they have developed a vaccine for a current strain of bird flu that is supposedly not transmisible between humans.  What about when it mutates for H2H transmission?  What then?  Will this new mirical vaccine still work then?  I would be happy to accept this but the problem is MUTATION.  Lest we forget now.  Great, the vaccine works now.  What about THEN?  It seems like a start but what about the common flu?  This years flu shot isn't even effective against it.  Developement is fine but what about production for an ever evolving virus?  I know my name isn't on the top of that vaccine list.  The thought is nice but reality is usually easier said than done.  We will see when the time comes.  right?

it's  a chicken vaccine

now all they have to do is vaccinate over a billion wild birds, all the dogs and cats and ticks and don't forget fish.

Edited by Corn

once they realize it can be a pandemic.. the government will probobly fund a lot of this and boost production. I mean, theres a cure. and millions of people could die. These guys need money. The government has billions of doallrs.
Plus its not like they wouldonly have one factory. theyll probobly have like 100 of them going to pump out enoug-- hey i just got an idea, maybe they could make an airborne form of the vaccine and put it in the air or somthing. You know how they crop dust? well they could do that, but with the vaccine! eh. i dunno. its just an idea.
 

Corn wrote: it's  a chicken vaccine now all they have to do is vaccinate over a billion wild birds, all the dogs and cats and ticks and don't forget fish.

 

I really don,t think my 100 guppies would appreciate being stuck in the butt with a needle considering some of them are not even the size of the end of the needle

ok now on a more serious not to this post...how long will it take them to get enough of this vaccine made to vaccinate all of the chickens...

Remember...from our own perspective..analogy:..bird flu goes H2H, it will take 6 months to a year to make a vaccine(thats if all the sceintist are not dead from the flu already) and then it will still take at least a year for them to produce enough to cover one tenth of the worlds population..

 

Wannago,  Acutally, I'm quite optimistic about our final outcome.  I'm a firm believer in "hope".  However, in the event that they run behind in getting the vaccine to us, then we can rely on the preps that we are doing today. 

As I have said before, I believe that our human resilincy will eradicate this in 12 months.  Simply, the human race is about to be backed into a corner as a whole - God help any Superflu that does that to us.     

Either way, the Superflu will sweep the globe in 6 months and it will be a long year. 

I live 45 miles south of Pittsburgh.  This evenings paper is talking about the vaccine.  It states they need $2 million to begin testing the safety of the vaccine on people.  They will know next week if they received the funding to begin preliminary clinical trials on 72 volunteers.    They said the vaccine is approved for widespread use in poultry and other birds to create a barrier to prevent the virus from spreading to humans.  The article is in the Valley Independent newspaper.   

It is great that they are working on a vaccine.  The downfall I see from it is the news are reporting it so all of the people I have been trying to are saying "See they came through and found a cure now you don't need to worry!"  I think the news is giving the people 'who do are not updated on everything about bird flu' a sense of everything is okay.  They do not see if this vaccine works but there is a pandemic it would be mass choas  of people in lines to get it.  Also, during the Swine Flu vaccine my husband and I chose not to get it because of the possible side effects.

Pittsburgh vaccine:  I read in todays newpaper that the vaccine will take about four to six months to produce a clinical grade and then be tested on 75 volunteers.  The traid could produce results within a year!  We do not have that much time.

One of the US biotech companies developing a bird flu vaccine and rapid vaccine manufacturing tehnology is Novavax.

Novavax has collaborative agreements with the National Institutes of Health for the development of AIDS vaccine and an avian flu vaccine to prevent a pandemic outbreak; National Cancer Institute to develop anticancer vaccines for the treatment of melanoma; NIAID, Walter Reed Army Institute for Research, and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals for the development of vaccines to prevent hepatitis caused by Hepatitis E virus; and with Wave Biotech LLC to develop pandemic influenza vaccine production technologies.

Here is the overview of Novavax and some bird flu links you may find useful.

http://www.tradingthemoves.com/marketview.htm

 

koolsteve wrote: why isnt the president worried? this thing is huge. why wont he step in. Bush is an idiot.

Uhh, before you go spouting off at the mouth, go look up what president Bush is doing. 

It's better to have people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Swanky, you crossed the line with that one.  Back off the attack mode.  Koolsteve is 14.  Educate him, don't berate.

I am sensing a lot of negativity on here.  Lets look once again at the big picture.  Human testing.  This spells disaster.  Not everyone will process an experimental vaccine the same way and we aren't chickens.  They are using genetically engineered cold viruses?  Uh, did anyone see Jurassic Park?  We are not getting a garantee untill we have seen live fire results.  The problem continues to go on with the mutation.  This is a virus we are talking about.  It can mutate in hours for all we know.  The fact is, none of us are biologists or virologists.  They could tell us anything and have people believe it.  INFORMATION CONTROL.  If they can't shut us down they will shut us up.  This is a political nightmare and the Fat Cats are clawing desperately trying to fix everything before it goes ka-plow in thier faces.  The situation must be worsening every hour or we wouldn't hear about it at all.  Dr. Ostreholm made things complicated for the political regime and the are starting to flounder around about it.  I also noticed after I mentioned about the missing posts, this guy Johnson stepped in with wonderful news about our savior vaccine from the Journal of Virology news letter.  Its called a Counter Strike.  Its what happens when they attack us and we regroup.  Before a retaliation can be made they attack again from a different platform.  However, instead of bullets, they are using words.  They are going to bombard us with the negativity and mis-information to confuse us and turn us against each other.  It has already started.  I am going to do my best to keep morall high and intellectually focused.  For KoolSteve, Ignore swanky.  He is trying to get the best of you and you are better than that.  Swanky is not nice for picking you out.  I now have reason to suspect swanky as part of the conspiricy.  I also am suspitious of Johnson.  If you dont' like the comments I have made come to Concord N.H. and look me up.  Then you can say it to my face and you won't like me after.  Everyone remember thier 1st ammendment right to freedom of speech and speak as you please.  I come to this site for the information and the support.  I will not tolerate negativity.  Back on track with the vaccine, I am not counting on it untill I see results with my own two eyes.  For all we know this could be fuel for the fire.  The bird flu isn't a lab test.  Real people are suffering and dying everyday because of it.  The pain is real.  The DEATH is real.  I don't care if the are Arabs, asians or not.  They are real people facing a real disease and so are we.  There is no room for ego here because we are facing a serious threat to ALL of us.  Some piece of paper from some medicine book doesn't make it all go away.  Mother nature has made a mockery of our great nation and all of its power this year.Who is to say she won't back hand us once again and laugh at our petty efforts to curb this flu.  I think its the calm before the storm and throwing a security blanket down won't save you.  I will feel some relief when I am in line to get the shot.  Then I will fell a sense the the government has put some urgency on the situation and are trying to help us.

Bird Flu Wake-Up Call

“Developing a vaccine against H5N1 is like targeting a
clay pigeon. You have to shoot ahead of the target to
allow the bullet and clay to intersect. Unfortunately
H5N1 is a pigeon that does random, sudden 90 degree
turns. It is the ultimate moving target.

The time to develop and manufacture a global vaccine
is six to eight months. By that time, the avian flu virus will
likely have mutated into a form that is immune to the
vaccine.”

----------

Evololutionary Biology - insights

“The model does not aim to predict the emergence of
new strains of influenza, but it does suggest that a
short-lived general immunity to the virus might affect
the virus's evolution.”

“We therefore inferred that there must be some other
form of interaction between strains happening in the
population,” he said. “The best fit to genetic data
was obtained when a secondary, non-specific immune
response was included in the model, on top of the
normal adaptive immune response which recognizes
individual virus strains.

This secondary response gives a person complete
protection against nearly all variants of the
influenza virus, but only for a short period of time.
This kind of protection, said Ferguson, would last
only for perhaps weeks after infection, after which it
would fade, rendering a person vulnerable to
reinfection with a different viral strain."

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?
id=142622006 ]http://http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/
opinion.cfm?id=142622006

Edited by Rick

the vaccine was fast track tested and manufacturers released of liability, By the time you wake up growing feathers from your back and wings.... the company  will already have their $$.  Lets test it on the manufacturers and their children and lets see how many step forward.

Just an FYI on Bush, he requested 7 billion stricly for research and development of a vaccine for this; he was granted 3.  Cut the guy some slack, he's dealing with terrorism, the downfall of the family and our country in general, and now this - he's a strong leader, and I'm sure we won't have to worry about an intern  under his desk while our country is in termoil. 

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type= governmentFilingsNews&storyID=URI:urn:newsml:reuters.com :20060203:MTFH62732_2006-02-03_20-39-05_N03255818:1

Experts skeptical of experimental birdflu vaccines.