Posted on 11/22/2007 5:39:28 PM PST by Coleus
Peanut butter-colored liquid percolates in a glass apparatus at one end of a high-ceilinged room ample enough to house a decent basketball court. Virologist Alan Shaw, a lanky Texan with a Viking beard, shoots a look at the fermenter, a soup of bacteria genetically engineered to contain flu-fighting particles. "Should bird flu ever strike," Shaw says, pointing to the bub bling glop, "this could provide enough vaccine to protect the entire state of New Jersey. We could have it ready in four to six weeks."
Shaw, 56, a former Merck & Co. executive who in his long, successful career has shepherded no less than five vaccines to market, is not one to exaggerate. But by pooling their substantial collective knowledge about vac cines, CEO Shaw and the former big pharma scientists who are on his team at VaxInnate, a privately held biotech in Cranbury, could be on the verge of producing something extraordi nary -- the much-sought-after and often-elusive "universal vaccine." The scientists also say they have a rapid-fire way to produce the vaccine so the fewest possible people would die, should a pandemic race through a population.
VaxInnate is in the vanguard of a small but fiercely competitive field to produce the world's first "universal" shot for flu. Such an im munization would protect people from all forms of flu -- from the deadliest pandemics to the weaker, though sometimes also deadly, an nual varieties. People no longer would need to receive a flu shot every year to protect against the ever-morphing bug. Merck scientists are working on it, as are researchers at Acambis in Cambridge, Mass., and Dynavax in San Diego, Calif. "We all know each other," Shaw said. But with his vaccine successfully sailing through early clinical trials, he is feeling confident.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
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Those “an nual varieties” are the series ones that everyone should have an “im munization” for.
bump & a micro ping
A better idea? (Thanks, neverdem and Coleus)
Don't know.
“Peanut butter-colored liquid percolates in a glass apparatus at one end of a high-ceilinged room”
in fact, it is stuck to the ceiling.
Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D
Medical News Today | 09/15/2006 | Dr. J. J. Cannell
Posted on 11/23/2007 10:09:05 PM EST by devere
Ihttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1929828/posts
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