ATHENS, Ga., Sept. 12 (AScribe Newswire) -- Leading influenza virus researchers at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine are developing a new option for preventing and treating respiratory infection and disease caused by highly pathogenic strains of avian influenza virus.
Avian influenza or flu is likely to cause the next worldwide outbreak of disease, according to health officials from the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control.
Historically, worldwide flu epidemics can be expected to occur three to four times each century. But recently, the emergence of a highly pathogenic avian flu in Asia known as H5N1 is thought to have significantly heightened the risk of another flu pandemic. This strain has infected and devastated the poultry industry in nine countries in Asia.
A flu pandemic is a global epidemic that occurs when a new flu virus appears in the human population, causing serious illness and spreading easily from person to person worldwide. Health experts generally agree that an influenza pandemic is on the horizon and could occur in the near future.
Ralph Tripp, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and professor of infectious diseases in the department of infectious diseases at the veterinary college, is collaborating with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals to develop a new therapeutic approach to prevent and treat this devastating virus that could emerge and result in widespread loss of human lives. It is believed that current flu vaccines will not provide protection for such new strains of flu, and producing an effective H5N1 vaccine in time to control a worldwide epidemic will be difficult if not impossible.
But a new approach called RNA interference or RNAi used by Tripp and colleagues at Alnylam can be used to target and silence key flu genes required for virus replication. Recent studies from the Tripp laboratory have shown that RNAi has potent anti-viral activity against human and avian strains of the flu.
The discovery of RNAi has been heralded by many as a major breakthrough. The journal Science named RNAi the top scientific achievement of 2002, as well as one of the top 10 scientific advances of 2003.
RNAi is a mechanism that occurs naturally in cells, selectively silencing and regulating specific genes. Since many diseases are caused by inappropriate activity of certain genes, the ability to silence or regulate them could provide a means for treating a wide range of diseases.
Tripp and scientists at Alnylam are applying RNAi technology to develop methods to prevent flu replication by targeting and silencing viral genes needed for infection and replication. The goal of their RNAi therapeutic program will be to develop RNAi therapeutics that will prevent both human and avian flu strains.
Pandemic flu differs from seasonal outbreaks that are caused by strains of flu that are already in existence among people and may be prevented by annual vaccines. A pandemic outbreak can be caused by new influenza strains or those that have not circulated among people recently.
Past influenza pandemics have spread around the world within one year of being detected, leading to high levels of illness, death, social disruption and economic loss. Today, conditions are far more favorable to the spread of flu. With high population densities and ease of air travel around the world, an outbreak could spread to virtually every city in the world in a matter of a few days.
Previous major pandemics include the 1918-19 Spanish flu that caused about 500,000 deaths in the United States and approximately 50 million deaths worldwide; the 1957-58 Asian flu that caused nearly 70,000 deaths in the United States; and the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu that caused about 34,000 deaths in the United States.
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Ralph Tripp, 706-542 1557, rtripp@vet.uga.edu
Dot Sparer, UGA News Service, 706-542-1446, dsparer@vet.uga.edu
Media Contact: Dot Sparer, 706-542-1446, dsparer@vet.uga.edu
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