Mosquitoes transmit a wide variety of nasty microbes, from viruses like dengue, yellow fever and Zika, to parasites like malaria. The sheer number and diversity of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes makes vaccine development a challenge. But what if a vaccine could, instead, target the mosquito?
universal flu vaccine
Scientists at the NIH s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have come up with a cocktail of VLPs that provides extraordinary coverage against eight flu strains in mice. Ninety-five percent of mice that were subjected to a lethal challenge of these strains survived, while only five percent of the mice that received mock (inactive, control) vaccines lived.