Lessons from the last pandemic point the way toward universal flu vaccines

A new study from the University of Chicago and Scripps Research Institute shows that during the last great pandemic—2009's H1N1 influenza pandemic—people developed strong, effective immune responses to stable, conserved parts of the virus. This suggests a strategy for developing universal flu vaccines that are designed to generate those same responses, instead of targeting parts of the virus that tend to evolve rapidly and require a new vaccine every year.