LOS ANGELES, United States - The United States has started the phase 1 clinical trial of a new investigational universal flu vaccine candidate, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced on Friday.
photo shows a medical worker administering a dose of flu vaccine to a recipient at a medical center in Rosemead, California, the United States, on Dec. 10, 2022.
The vaccine candidate was designed by researchers at NIAID's Vaccine Research Center. It is designed to induce antibodies against many different influenza virus strains by displaying part of the influenza virus hemagglutinin protein in repeating patterns on self-assembling nanoparticle scaffolds. Exposure to these harmless fragments of virus proteins prepares the immune system to recognize and fight the actual virus.
The new clinical trial is expected to enroll 24 healthy volunteers, aged 18 to 50 years, who will receive two intramuscular injections of the FluMos-v2 vaccine candidate. These injections will be given 16 weeks apart.