We have annual flu vaccines because the influenza virus mutates every year.  The antibodies you made for this season's flu  many not protect you against next year's flu version  That's why many scientists are trying to create a universal flu vaccine that could provide protection against a broad range of flu virus strains.

Neil King, assistant professor of biochemistry and a researcher at the UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design, explains the latest success on the road to a universal flu vaccine. A paper today in Nature describes work by his team and the NIH Vaccine Research Center on a nanoparticle flu vaccine that, in animal trials, provided broad immunity against multiple flu strains, both season and pandemic.  He tells how the experimental vaccine was created.

Next steps will be clinical trials, now in the planning stages. 

Read our news release about the paper published March 24 in the journal Nature.

Access downloadable video resources of Neil King.