New markers hidden inside the influenza virus have been discovered by scientists at Cardiff University. The researchers from the School of Medicine worked with an international team of experts - including collaborators in Moscow, Russia and Melbourne, Australia - to look at how people’s immune systems responded to the new protein markers.
They showed for the first time that “helper” T cells, a type of white blood cell that can suppress viral function, were activated when they came into contact with them. Importantly, they found these internal markers rarely change across different strains, meaning they could provide a potential new target for a vaccine that could protect against all forms of flu.
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