A llama blood clue to defeat the flu

US scientists have recruited an unlikely ally in their efforts to develop a new flu treatment.

Llamas have been used to produce a new antibody treatment that can combat all types of influenza, including new pandemics.

The flu is the ultimate form metamorphosis, which constantly changes its appearance to escape our immune system.

This is why a new influenza vaccine is needed every winter and the vaccine sometimes misses the mark.

Science is looking for a way to kill all types of flu, no matter the strain or extent of its mutation.

It is there that the llama, better known for his wool, enters the scene.

The animals produce incredibly tiny antibodies compared to ours.

Antibodies are weapons of the immune system and bind to proteins that come off the surface of a virus.

Human antibodies tend to attack the ends of these proteins, but this is the part most easily transformed by the flu.

Llama antibodies use their size advantage to squirm a little deeper and attack the parts that the flu can not change.

The Scripps Institute team in California has infected llamas with several types of flu to provoke an immune response.

They then searched the lama's blood for the most potent antibodies that could attack a large number of influenza strains.

They chose four, and then started building their own synthetic antibody that used elements from each.

It has been tested in mice, which have been administered lethal doses of influenza.

Professor Ian Wilson, one of the researchers, told BBC Science in Action: "It's very effective, 60 different viruses have been used as part of the challenge. has not been neutralized and it is a virus that does not infect humans.

"The goal here is to provide something that works from season to season and to protect you against possible pandemics, if any."

The work, published in the journal Science, is in its infancy and the team wants to do more tests before starting the human trials.

Holy Grail

Researchers have tried two approaches to give animals the antibodies.

The first was to inject the antibodies and the second was a type of gene therapy.

The genetic instructions for making the antibody were incorporated into a harmless virus, which was then used to infect the mouse's nose.

The cells of the mucous membranes of the nose then began to produce the anti-influenza antibody.

An additional benefit of this approach is that it could work in the elderly.

The older you get, the more your immune system is degraded and the less the seasonal flu vaccine becomes effective.

But the approach inspired by the llama does not need to train the immune system.

Professor Jonathan Ball, of the University of Nottingham, told the BBC: "It is highly sought after to have a treatment capable of treating various strains of viruses.It is the holy grail of the influenza.

"There will be an appetite, but it depends on the quality of these things, their ease of production and their cost."

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