A marvouesly adaptable little critter. I read an article in the last few days about the flu virus. The gemone mapping has been completed on it and they are now looking for new attachment sites that can be used in combating it. Last year there was a problem in getting the vaccine out. The vaccine is made using fertilized chicken eggs and it seems that there are not very many chicken farmers left that are raising fertilized eggs. It turned out that the bottle neck was unavalibilty of such eggs on a large scale. This produced the shortage which lead to late issuance of the vaccine and so that mostly only the young and old were first to recieve it. It came so late that for a lot of people it was to late. This problem will be addressed if we are successful in being provided with a vacinne that blocks the receptor sites in out cells or blocks the mating keys sites within the virus. On another note, the HIV vacinne is now undergoing testing with chimps. I did not get the whole story as to whether this is prelimenary testing but I would make the guess that there is still a ways to go before such a vaccine will be ready for public application.
Heres a link to some info about one of the HIV vaccines currently in development: http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,45486,00.html
But the problem is that the flu virus is a new strain each year. Wouldn't that mean that you have to study the genome again and again each year? Just a question.
Vaccine is a temporary measure and takes time. What I propose is an automated analyzer that self assembles amino acids as the key to the virus using combinatorial chemistry. This can be generated very fast on a production level and work directly on the virus. My point is , instead of waiting for the antibodies to develop by trial and error using hosts like fertilized chicken eggs, we use the standard pharmaceutical production methodology. Read my post in Antibiotics on this line of research...
LOL! It´s good to have a face to go with the virus. So you know what to look for. But you know, it´s all in our minds.... At least, that is what I´m trying to convince myself right now. I have the flu...buhu.... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Are you talking about predicting the likely future mutational changes of the virus? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! NAY...... You are saying that you would like to scan each new virus mutation and then have a machine to produce antibodies that are specific to each new virus encountered. Custom antibodies!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Re: LOL! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Poor Girl!!!!!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
