Swine flu offers ‘extraordinary super immunity’

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People who recover from swine flu may be left with an extraordinary natural ability to fight off flu viruses, findings suggests.

In beating a bout of H1N1 the body makes antibodies that can kill many other flu strains, a study in the Journal of Experimental Medicine shows.

Doctors hope to harness this power to make a universal flu vaccine that would protect against any type of influenza.

Ultimately this could replace the “best guess” flu vaccines currently used.

Such a vaccine is the “holy grail” for flu researchers. Many scientists are already testing different prototypes to put an end to the yearly race to predict coming flu strains and quickly mass produce a new vaccine each flu season.

Dr Patrick Wilson who led the latest research said the H1N1 swine flu virus that reached pandemic levels infecting an estimated 60 million people last year, had provided a unique opportunity for researchers.

“It demonstrates how to make a single vaccine that could potentially provide immunity to all influenza.

“The surprise was that such a very different influenza strain, as opposed to the most common strains, could lead us to something so widely applicable.”

Extraordinary immunity

In the nine patients they studied who had caught swine flu during the pandemic, they found the infection had triggered the production of a wide range of antibodies that are only very rarely seen after seasonal flu infections or flu vaccination.

Five antibodies isolated by the team could fight all the seasonal H1N1 flu strains from the last decade, the devastating “Spanish flu” strain from 1918 which killed up to 50m people, plus a potentially deadly bird flu H5N1 strain.

The researchers believe the “extraordinarily” powerful antibodies were created as the body learned how to fight the new infection with swine flu using its old memory of how to fight off other flu viruses.

Next they plan to examine the immune response of people who were vaccinated against last year’s swine flu but did not get sick to see if they too have the same super immunity to flu.

Dr Sarah Gilbert is a expert in viruses at Oxford University and has been testing her own prototype universal flu vaccine.

She said: “Many scientists are working to develop a vaccine that would protect against the many strains of flu virus.

“This work gives us more confidence that it will be possible to generate a universal flu vaccine.”

But she said it would take many years for a product to go through the necessary tests and trials.

“It will take at least five years before anything like this could be widely available.”

The number of deaths this winter from flu verified by the Health Protection Agency currently is 50, with 45 of these due to swine flu.

Many hopeful about Russian scientist’s anti-aging drug

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A Russian scientist says he has beaten the problem of aging and in just a few years the medicine that stops it will go on sale.

Professor Vladimir Skulachev says he managed to find an anti-oxidant that stops the gradual deterioration of health caused by age.

It looks complicated and it certainly is. For Vladimir Skulachev it is almost a life's work. Two more years of testing and the doctor thinks he will have finally cracked the enigma of aging.

Apparently it's all about how oxygen reacts in the body.

“99% of the time oxygen turns into harmless water, but there's that one percent that turns into a super-oxide that later turns into very poisonous elements,” Vladimir Skulachev, Professor of Bioenergetics, reveals. “So the task was to find an anti-oxidant that stops that process.”

And hence, according to the professor, it would also stop people from getting old.

He has been working to prefect his treatment for more than 40 years. The difficult part of the process has been to try and prevent any side-effects, he notes.

Colleagues around the world think Dr Skulachev is on to something.

Nobel Prize winner Dr. Gunter Blobel, M.D., Ph.D. at Rockefeller University, believes Skulachev’s theories look very realistic.

“It has been shown that oxidative damage is huge. But we do not have an anti-oxidant of the type that Skulachev has developed. He coined the term bioenergetics. He is clearly the world’s best bio-chemist and bio-energetic scientist,”Blobel stated.

The compound has already undergone animal testing and the results appear promising.

Rats that have been given the drug are much more lively than those not treated.

“Finally, we hope that we will manage to convince people that a single pill treats many threats of aging. So, it must be doing something with the aging itself,” Maksim Skulachev Cand. Sc. (Biology) explains. “Then, if authorities will accept this logic, maybe we could somehow market it as anti-aging drug.”

After success with eye drops in animals, the inventor tried the medicine on his own cataract.
Six months later, his physician told him his cataract was gone.

Thousands are queuing to take part in the clinical trials, which have just begun. But it will be a few years before Dr Skulachev's discovery reaches the shelves of an average pharmacy.

Some have already dubbed the drug a panacea. And if it lives up to its promise, the treatment should have an effect on the diseases of aging and bring with it the prospect of a longer and better quality of life.