Resumen de Protecting the world from deadly H7N9 flu
In the secure environment of a biosafety level 3 containment lab at St Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis TN, Jim Allay and Mike Tillman are looking for robust "plaques"--clumps of chicken embryo kidney cells infected with an engineered flu virus. The stakes could scarcely be higher. This virus is a vaccine strain carrying genes from the H7N9 bird flu that has killed more than 30 people in China. If H7N9 acquires the mutations it needs to pass from person to person, the "seed strain" that the St Jude team is racing to produce could be the main line of defense against a flu pandemic that would threaten millions of people. Just a handful of labs are set up to do this work. Two other labs in the UK and US have recently created initial seed strains. It is vital to give manufacturers a choice of vaccine strains so they can select one that grows well and provokes a strong immune response and then scale it up for full production.
