Permenant protection againts the flu?

Researchers have discovered antibodies that disable multiple varieties of the flu virus by targeting the virus's protein that covers its surface allowing it to attach to it's receptor on it's surface known as hemagglutinin. The hemagglutinin then performs contortions that enable it to merge the virus's membrane with the cell's membrane.

At the moment vaccines mainly send antibodies that target the hemagglutinin's head, but that part of the protein changes rapidly, undermining these immune defenses. But now they've discovered an unchanging part of hemagglutinin and even identified 10 antibodies that recognized different versions of this part of the hemagglutinin, also known as H5. So far these antibodies have been able to block not only H5 but also eight other types of flu virus in solution. When given to infected mice 3 days after the infection, most of the rodents survived, suggesting the antibodies are therapeutic and preventive.

Another discovery showed that instead of attaching to the hemagglutinin's head, the antibody attaches to three pockets on the stem of the virus and that the amino acid sequence found in this region is the same in other viral strains. That means that an antibody that recognizes this region alone could protect against a variety of flu strains possibly even the avian flu.

-Lysander Ning