North Texas Researchers Creating "Ultimate Flu Shot"

North Texas researchers are on the brink of revolutionizing the way we fight the flu.

Every year, scientists try to guess which strain of the flu will cause the most people to get sick. They use that particular flu bug to make a flu vaccine. But what if you could get one shot that would tackle every single type of flu?

Dena Rushing from Little Elm has not had the flu in years. “Overall, we’re a very healthy family, and very active,” she said. But it is not because she gets the flu shot. She used to get it, but said that she would always get sick. “I can’t remember a year I didn’t, and then I stopped taking it and I stopped getting the flu.”

Rushing believes that the inactive virus – which makes up the shot – is what is responsible for making her sick. Most doctors say that is not the case. But for her, experience speaks volumes. “We haven’t got it and we haven’t got the flu,” Rushing said.

Now, researchers in North Texas say that this fear could soon become a thing of the past.

“We are in the front line of discovery,” said Dr. Beatrice Fontoura. She and her team at UT Southwestern have discovered a compound that works to fight multiple strains of the flu, including the deadly Spanish Flu that killed millions of people around the world in 1918.

“What we are doing is something different,” said Fontoura, explaining her research. “We are actually stimulating our own response which is already there – boost it – to fight an infection.” more

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