Researchers at The Pirbright Institute have helped in the development of a new molecule to treat a range of viruses including the common cold. In addition to the days of work lost due to illness, the common cold can cause complications in respiratory illnesses such as asthma and cystic fibrosis.
Dr Simon Carpenter, Head of the Entomology group at Pirbright, swipes right on some stars of the insect dating scene for National Insect Week.
Researchers from The Pirbright Institute collaborated with the University of Oxford and the National Institutes of Health, USA, to show that S-FLU, a universal flu vaccine candidate, induces different immune responses in pigs compared to ferrets, raising the possibility that the ferrets may not give the whole picture and that pigs may more faithfully represent human influenza disease. The team also identified a type of T cell in pigs for the first time, which are able to rapidly help fight respiratory infections.
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