Fw: Is this going to be the Bush October surprise?

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Thursday, October 07, 2004 10:08 PM

Is this going to be the Bush October surprise?

 

 

TODAY'S PAPER

 

 

Scientists create 'cousin' of 1918 killer flu

 

For the first time, researchers have revealed how one gene might have made

the pandemic that killed at least 20 million people so lethal

 

By CAROLYN ABRAHAM

MEDICAL REPORTER

Thursday, October 7, 2004 - Page A21

 

Behind the thick-walled confines of Canada's National Microbiology

Laboratory in Winnipeg, scientists have created from scratch a creepy cousin of

the 1918 pandemic flu virus, the deadliest plague in history.

 

Their lab-made microbe, a concoction of two synthetic genes copied from

the 1918 virus and three other human viruses, has already made quick work of

killing mice. More importantly, it has for the first time revealed how one gene

might have made the infamous 1918 pathogen so lethal.

 

The Canadian researchers, working with colleagues in the United States and

Japan, have found that a unique form of a gene known as HA (haemagglutinin) may

have made the 1918 virus a Houdini of break-and-enter. The gene seems to give

the virus the ability to bind itself to a host cell and find a way to break

through a variety of defences.

 

If scientists can determine how the 1918 virus infected so many so

quickly, and why it was so lethal, they may be able to prevent the next pandemic

flu from spreading.

 

" This is the first paper that shows the [HA] gene may be a playing a role

in its lethality, " said Darwyn Kobasa, a virologist at Health Canada's national

lab and lead author of the report published today in Nature. " This HA gene has

structural features that aren't present in other known flu viruses. "

 

The recreated microbe ravaged the lungs of lab mice, causing internal

bleeding and inflammation, much as the original 1918 virus did when it killed

more than 20 million people in a single year.

 

Research into the biological properties of the 1918 virus, which is

believed to have jumped to people from birds by way of a pig, has taken on a

sense of urgency. Infectious-disease experts have long warned that the next

pandemic is overdue. Recent outbreaks of avian flu, from Asia to British

Columbia, have contributed to concerns.

 

" The question has been, what was different about [the 1918 virus] that it

killed so many young people -- not the elderly, or the infirm, but people

between 20 and 40, in the prime of their life? They could be healthy one day and

dead the next, " said Ian Gemmill, a flu specialist and medical officer of health

for the Kingston, Ont., area.

 

" This kind of research might help us to know what we might be dealing

with. . . . Then perhaps we could address it. "

 

The new research suggests that " a large segment " of the world's population

would again be vulnerable to a viral strain that contained this form of HA gene.

Based on blood samples drawn from people between the ages of 2 and 102 in Japan,

the researchers found that only those who had actually survived the 1918 flu

pandemic have a natural protection against it.

 

Dr. Kobasa became involved in flu research while working with Japanese

virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin, where they worked

on creating a model virus for experiments.

 

Efforts to extract the actual 1918 flu virus from exhumed corpses of

pandemic victims, and preserved tissue samples from First World War soldiers who

died of the disease, were unsuccessful. But scientists were able to collect

enough snippets of viral DNA to begin decoding the chemical sequences of the

pathogen's eight genes. Five have been decoded so far.

 

Dr. Kobasa and his colleagues made artificial chemical copies of two of

these genes and then combined them with six genes from three other human viruses

to make up the eight in the original pathogen. When they began working with a

live 1918-like virus, the project moved to Winnipeg's high-containment, Level 4

lab.

 

Researchers there applied the new virus creation by droplet to the nasal

passages of mice, who became ill within two days. This reaction would not be

expected from human viruses, which do not normally attack mice. But earlier this

year, U.S. researchers reported that the HA gene may only require minor changes

to infect the cells of different species, namely birds or humans. Dr. Kobasa

cautioned the work is preliminary: " This is in mice and we cannot say for sure

that this will do the same things in humans. "

 

The samples of the lab-made 1918 flu version will now be stored

indefinitely in liquid nitrogen at the Winnipeg facility, sharing space with the

world's other microbial monsters, Ebola and Marburg among them.