Every year, health officials do their best to predict the flu strains that will hit the U.S. and develop a vaccine to cover them. Unfortunately, they sometimes miss their mark.
Now, Vanderbilt researchers are hoping to add some precision to the process.
During any given year, the flu vaccine can be anywhere from 20- to 90-percent effective depending on how accurately health officials predict which strains are coming.
That doesn't include situations like the one this year where the H1N2 strain appeared out of nowhere.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has given Vanderbilt a $9 million grant. Over the next five years, researchers will try to developed what's being referred to as a universal vaccine.
"That's what we want to do is design a vaccine that would protect against all of the strains, even the seasonal viruses," said James Crowe, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center. "And not only that, but these bird viruses that are threatening to cause pandemics."
Drug companies currently only have about six months to produce the vaccine that is used the following flu season.
This particular study will pair scientists with computer experts to create a high-tech program that would analyze protein structures of existing strains and develop an antibody years in advance.
"We're in an era of big data, using supercomputers to model and project what the flu might do in the future ," Crowe said. "We want to project computationally what'll happen, rather than just an educated guess."
If successful, the millions spent on research would be a fraction of what the country now spends annually on vaccines that are far less accurate.
"The cost of having to immunize people every year, and sometimes not very effectively, far outweighs the cost of research," Crowe said. "So we think we'll get a pretty good return on investment ."
Right now, roughly 30,000 people die each year from complications from the flu.
