The Genomic Revolution Implications for Treatment and Control of Infectious Disease: Working Group Summaries (2006) / Chapter Skim
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How Would You Spend $100 Million Over the Next Five Years to Prevent the Next Pandemic Flu?
How Would You Spend $100 Million Over the Next Five Years to Prevent the Next Pandemic Flu?
Pages 25-32
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From page 25... ...
There are currently multiple influenza strains for which humans lack immunity that are circulating in wild bird populations. One of the most dangerous is the H5N1 strain, where H5 and N1 denote the particular variants of the viron surface proteins hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, respectively, which our immune system uses to recognize the virus.
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From page 26... ...
Here E coli plasmids containing the eight segments of the flu virus plus some viral proteins to initiate viral replication are transfected into mammalian cell lines so that different virus strains can be created and propagated in cell culture.
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From page 27... ...
M Keck Foundation · David Haussler, Director of the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering and Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Santa Cruz · Stephen Albert Johnston, Director and Professor, Center for Innovations in Medicine, Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University · Kam Leong, Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University · Haley Poland, Graduate Student, Annenberg School of Journalism, University of Southern California · Karin Remington, Vice-President, Bioinformatics Research, J
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From page 28... ...
As the group members brainstormed to organize the spending in a way that would complement currently proposed flu preparedness plans, the far-reaching impact of limited but well-placed funding would become clear. Following eight hours of intense collaboration through roundtable discussions, the money was divided into two broad categories.
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From page 29... ...
Consequently, the group allocated $10 million to modeling the landscape of flu strains edging toward pandemic by documenting how the virus is changing over time in its wild reservoirs, and how it might mutate or combine with other viruses in the future according to observed patterns. Myles Axton presented an analogy comparing the evolutionary landscape of a flu virus to a golf course.
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From page 30... ...
Gene vaccines work by introducing a gene that codes for an antigenic protein directly into the nucleus of dendritic immune cells. When the gene is expressed, the surface of the cell is modified in such a way that cellular immune response is triggered: white blood cells recognize and kill foreign organisms and infected cells as detected by surface proteins.
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From page 31... ...
In addition to grants for a Gimish vaccine, $5 million was allocated for seed grants for antiviral research. One new antiviral approach halts viral proliferation by capitalizing on a natural cellular process called RNA interference (RNAi)
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From page 32... ...
Ongoing sequencing of flu strains would not only drive vaccine production but also allow for constant updates of the detection devices. As vaccines from the competing labs were to be tested against the constructed viruses, the efficacy or inefficacy of those vaccines would inform both the landscape model and ongoing research.
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