Researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta have made an astonishing breakthrough in the fight against flu, raising hopes that a new vaccine, that can prevent several strains of the annual winter virus and the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu, could be produced within several years.

 

They have discovered human antibodies that neutralize several strains of influenza A viruses, including H5N1 bird flu virus, that could be used as drugs, Wayne A. Marasco, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, noted. He also added that drugs derived from antibodies are commonplace in treatment for such cancers as colon, breast and lymphoma.

 

“These flu antibodies can be developed into fully human antibody drugs that could be used in the clinic” in the same way antiviral medications, such as Tamiflu, are used today, Dr. Marasco said.

 

For the studies, the researchers used the blood of 57 New Englanders donated a decade ago and used to build a library of 27 billion disease-fighting cells called antibodies.

 

After screening all these antibodies, they found 10 capable of stopping the bird flu. Next they tried the antibodies on the deadly 1918 strain and “sure enough, they blocked that virus also,” Dr. Marasco said. “And at that point, we knew we had something special,” he added. The fu pandemic occurred in 1918 killed an estimated 40 million people worldwide and 500,000 in the United States alone.

 

It is true that these antibodies were tested only on lab mice and cell cultures, but the researchers expressed optimism that they could work in humans too. Dr. Marasco said the next step is to test the antibodies in ferrets, and then to develop an appropriate version for human clinical trials as soon as 2011 to 2012.

 

“The antibodies we characterize in our published works are molecules to go into clinical trials and hopefully one day, will be approved for into human treatment,” Dr. Marasco said.

 

The findings are so promising that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will offer the researchers grants and access to its ferrets, which can catch human flu.

 

“This is a really good study. It’s not yet at the point of practicality, but the concept is really quite interesting,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said

 

Worldwide, seasonal flu kills more than 250,000 people annually. Infections with bird flu virus resulted in the deaths of millions of birds and almost 300 people from those over 400 who contracted it. Humans infected with the bird flu have a 65 percent mortality rate.

 

The study was published in the Sunday edition of the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.