Experts on H1N1 influenza are collaborating all across the country to learn more about the virus and how to prevent its transmission. In a race against time, Emory studies are taking place in the lab and in human clinical trials to help find a vaccine that can be used in the near weeks to come.
Recently, Emory’s Jeff Koplan, MD, vice president for global health and past CDC director, participated in a Breakthroughs panel sponsored by Big Think, Pfizer and Discover to discuss the latest issues in pandemic and genomic science, fields that have not only made big headlines recently but also promise to be two of the most pressing topics in global science and medicine in coming years.
Jeffrey P. Koplan, MD, MPH
The panel focused on the real-time, round-the-clock scientific mission to understand the history, significance, and future of the new strain of flu that emerged suddenly this spring. Panelists included Koplan; Barry Bloom, Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health at Harvard; Peter Palese, chairman of the microbiology department at Mt. Sinai Medical Center; and Michael Worobey, ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona.
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Emory began signing up several hundred interested volunteers several weeks ago for a clinical trial of the H1N1 vaccine along with the seasonal flu vaccine. About 170 adults have now been vaccinated in the trial, which will last about nine weeks and involve several vaccinations and blood tests. A clinical trial testing the H1N1 vaccine in children will begin at Emory and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in the next few days, followed by another adult clinical trial adding an adjuvant to the H1N1 vaccine.
In addition, a multi-pronged attack against the H1N1 virus by Emory researchers is using a new method of rapidly producing highly targeted monoclonal antibodies to develop a diagnostic test as well as a temporary therapy to stave off the H1N1 virus. The antibodies, which can be isolated from a small amount of the blood of humans infected with the virus, could be targeted against H1N1 and rapidly reproduced to detect or attack the virus.
