Research news: 1918 flu aided immunity

The News:
1918 flu aided immunity
In survivors, potent defenses evolved for protection
By Seth BorensteinThe Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 08/18/2008 01:15:00 AM MDT

WASHINGTON — Nearly a century after history's most lethal flu faded away, survivors' bloodstreams still carry super- potent protection against the 1918 virus, demonstrating the remarkable durability of the human immune system.
Scientists tested the blood of 32 people ages 92 to 102 who were exposed to the 1918 pandemic flu and found antibodies that still roam the body looking to strangle the old flu strain. Researchers manipulated those antibodies into a vaccine and found that it kept alive all the mice they had injected with the killer flu, according to a study published online Sunday in the journal Nature.
There is no pressing need for a 1918 flu vaccine because the virus has long since mutated out of its deadly form and is unlikely to be a threat anymore, experts said. What is more important in this research, they said, is that it confirms theories that our immune system has a steel-trap memory.
"It's incredible. The Lord has blessed us with antibodies our whole lifetime," said study co- author Dr. Eric Altschuler at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
This is the longest that specific disease-fighting cells have lasted in people, said study lead author Dr. James Crowe, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.
But these antibodies don't just survive; they have mutated tremendously and now bind tighter to disease cells than other antibodies. That makes them more potent, he said. Read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Nature.