Viral- and host-targeted interventions to improve influenza disease outcomes
type: CreativeWork
description: Despite decades of work by scientists and public health officials, influenza viruses continue to cause widespread morbidity and mortality. Each year it is estimated that these pathogens infect up to 20% of the global population, leading to nearly a million deaths. In considering this, it is clear that additional research and intervention strategies are needed. When examining influenza virus infection and subsequent outcomes, it is easiest to look at the disease from two perspective; the virus and the host. The influenza virus, a sort of obligate intracellular parasite, must coopt a myriad of host cell proteins and processes in order to complete its lifecycle, and produce infectious progeny virions in hopes of spreading to and infecting new cells and hosts. At the same time, the infected host must both detect this viral invader, as well as mount an effective response, in the form of both innate and adaptive immune pathways, to try and limit and eventually clear the viral pathogen. In considering how important these two sides of the same coin were, we decided to take a two-pronged approach and focus our research efforts on both the virus and host in the hopes of improving influenza infection outcomes. Seasonal vaccination has been, and still remains, the best strategy for preventing influenza infection. Each year, a new formulation of the seasonal influenza vaccine is designed and manufactured with the hopes of inducing protective immunity, in the form of neutralizing antibodies, against the major circulating influenza strains. Seasonal vaccine efficacy (VE), however, remains low; averaging close to fifty percent over the past two decades. Recent work has demonstrated that this is in large part due to adaptive mutations that occur during growth of the virus in embryonated chicken eggs, the major manufacturing platform in which most vaccine doses are made, due to conformational differences between eggs and the human respiratory tract in the influenza host cell receptor…
abstract: Despite decades of work by scientists and public health officials, influenza viruses continue to cause widespread morbidity and mortality. Each year it is estimated that these pathogens infect up to 20% of the global population, leading to nearly a million deaths. In considering this, it is clear that additional research and intervention strategies are needed. When examining influenza virus infection and subsequent outcomes, it is easiest to look at the disease from two perspective; the virus and the host. The influenza virus, a sort of obligate intracellular parasite, must coopt a myriad of host cell proteins and processes in order to complete its lifecycle, and produce infectious progeny virions in hopes of spreading to and infecting new cells and hosts. At the same time, the infected host must both detect this viral invader, as well as mount an effective response, in the form of both innate and adaptive immune pathways, to try and limit and eventually clear the viral pathogen. In considering how important these two sides of the same coin were, we decided to take a two-pronged approach and focus our research efforts on both the virus and host in the hopes of improving influenza infection outcomes. Seasonal vaccination has been, and still remains, the best strategy for preventing influenza infection. Each year, a new formulation of the seasonal influenza vaccine is designed and manufactured with the hopes of inducing protective immunity, in the form of neutralizing antibodies, against the major circulating influenza strains. Seasonal vaccine efficacy (VE), however, remains low; averaging close to fifty percent over the past two decades. Recent work has demonstrated that this is in large part due to adaptive mutations that occur during growth of the virus in embryonated chicken eggs, the major manufacturing platform in which most vaccine doses are made, due to conformational differences between eggs and the human respiratory tract in the influenza host cell receptor…
author: Harding, Alfred
keywords: Microbiology
date published: 2020
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:07:10Z
provider: Duke University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Duke University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/10161/22207