Finding better ways to fight the flu

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It's the season for sneezin', sniffles and sickness. Every year, between five and 20 percent of the US population gets the flu and the infected could be passing it on to you before they even know they're sick! Researchers are hard at work developing better ways to fight the flu.



"And so this is a powerful new approach," said Whitehead.

Using super computers they're designing proteins from scratch that are able to find a vulnerable portion of the virus that is in most common strains and latch on.

"That was an Achilles' heal for the virus," Whitehead explained.


"In the presence of our protein, the cells aren't infected," Whitehead said.



Whitehead says the flu protein is separate from a vaccine and the idea is to administer it before or after an outbreak. He says we are about five to ten years from human testing. As for printable vaccines, reports, Venter's team is currently testing a biological printer, but there are a lot of regulatory issues to consider before it ever becomes a reality.
