Stanford Medicine researchers have developed a breakthrough method to enhance the effectiveness of seasonal flu vaccines by addressing a key limitation in immune response. The team, led by Mark Davis, discovered that genetic factors rather than first exposure to flu cause most people to develop antibodies to only one of the four flu subtypes in current vaccines. To solve this, they created a new vaccine design that chemically links all four types of hemagglutinin (the flu virus’s hook-like molecule) onto a molecular matrix, which forces immune cells to respond to all variants simultaneously. Testing in human tonsil organoids demonstrated that this approach successfully generated antibody responses to all four flu strains, and even showed promise in protecting against bird flu when that antigen was included in the matrix. This innovation could significantly improve flu vaccine efficacy, which currently ranges from 20% to 80%, and potentially help protect against future pandemic strains.
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