The British-American company Acambis is testing for the first time in humans, the universal influenza vaccine - ACAM-FLU-A - pioneered by researchers from VIB and Ghent University.

In the 1990s, VIB researchers connected to Ghent University, under the direction of Prof. Emeritus Walter Fiers, invented a universal flu vaccine. One protein on the surface of the influenza virus, the so-called M2 protein, remains unchanged in all human flu viruses known, including the strains that caused the pandemics in the last century.

On the basis of the M2-protein they developed a vaccine and successfully tested it on mice and other laboratory animals: the M2 vaccine provided total protection against 'A' strains of flu, without side effects.

Furthermore, this universal influenza vaccine is the first example of a vaccine inducing a protective immune response that normally does not occur in nature, for example following infection by a virus or a bacterium.

Find more details from the full report at Acambis and Science Daily.