Re­searchers go af­ter the Holy Grail in flu re­search with the first big study for a uni­ver­sal jab

Sev­en­teen months af­ter spin­ning out of Ox­ford, Vac­citech has lined up some big part­ners to help start the world’s first big hu­man study of a uni­ver­sal flu vac­cine.

The Na­tion­al In­sti­tute for Health Re­search is kick­ing this off by re­cruit­ing 500 pa­tients over the age of 65, the most vul­ner­a­ble group dur­ing every flu sea­son.

Every year, sea­son­al flu vac­cine man­u­fac­tur­ers gear up to cre­ate vac­cines that tar­get the pro­teins that lie on the sur­face of flu cells, look­ing to kick up an im­mune re­sponse against it. But they’re slap­ping a puck that has to hit a mov­ing tar­get that’s still months away from de­clar­ing it­self — a tough job that of­ten miss­es its mark.

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