One-jab universal flu shot in offing

Scientists have uncovered how human immune cells remember previously encountered strains of influenza, a discovery that may pave the way for a single universal flu shot to immunise people for their entire lives.
The "extraordinary breakthrough" shows how 'killer' CD8 + T cells - the body's 'army of hitmen' tasked with taking out new viruses - retain memories of virus strains they encounter.
The Australia-Sino collaboration began during the first outbreak of the avian-derived H7N9 virus in China in 2013.
That contagion saw 99 per cent of people infected hospitalised, with a 30 per cent mortality rate, researchers said.
"We'd never seen anything like H7N9," University of Melbourne's Associate Professor Katherine Kedzierska said.

"The virus was infecting more people rapidly and nobody had immunity. Thankfully, we did manage to contain the virus but we knew we had come face-to-face with a potential pandemic that could kill millions of people around the world if the virus became able to spread between humans," she said.

"After collecting samples from infected patients we found that people who couldn't make these T cell flu assassins were dying. These findings lead to the potential of moving from vaccines for specific influenza strains towards developing a protection, which is based on T-cells," she said.
"From the 30 per cent mortality rate in China we knew the clock was ticking on the situation. Had the contagion spread broken out globally, we're talking about a history-altering event on the Spanish Flu scale. As it turns out, boosting the T cell adaptive memory capacity is our way in," Kedzierska said.

"Our extraordinary breakthrough could lead to the development of a vaccine component that can protect against all new influenza viruses, with the potential for future development of a one-off universal flu vaccine shot," she said.
"This work will also help clinicians to make early predictions of how well a patient's immune system will respond to viruses so they can manage early interventions such as artificial ventilation more effectively, particularly in cases where the patient is at risk of dying," said Kedzierska.
The research was published in the Nature Communications journal.