Top U.S. health official Mike Levitt announced Sunday the U.S. won't be prepared for a potential bird flu epidemic for three to five years, but ASU life sciences professor Roy Curtiss III is already working on the problem.
Curtiss suspects it's only a matter of time until the bird flu outbreak in Asia creates a worldwide flu pandemic.
"It will ultimately occur, whether it's this year, next year or 50 years from now," he said.
And if that pandemic were to occur today, there would be only one way to deal with the situation -- "learn to dig graves," Curtiss said.
That's why he and his research team at ASU's Biodesign Institute are investigating and developing vaccines for bird and human flu strains, as well as other infectious diseases.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu, or avian influenza, has been killing poultry in Asia since 2003. Although the virus rarely jumps to humans, it has killed at least 67 people since the outbreak.
Curtiss said those deaths can usually be attributed to primitive living conditions in which people live in close contact with farm animals.
"In many parts of the world, pigs, poultry and humans live together," he said. "This is a real opportunity for influenza viruses to spread."
What Curtiss fears, however, isn't that the virus occasionally jumps from animal to human, but that the strain of virus will mutate into a form that can be transmitted from human to human.
"We've had histories of flu epidemics," said Bonnie Gunn, a research associate on Curtiss' team. "It's a virus that hits, and hits hard."
Gunn works in a lab at the Biodesign Institute constructing host strains for the vaccine. She's responsible for detoxifying salmonella bacteria to make it a safe host for the vaccine.
Using "friendly salmonella" as a host is a new concept that Curtiss and his team are putting to the test.
Keith Aneiss, a post-doctoral research associate on the team, is working on making the salmonella create a specific protein of the influenza virus. Including this protein in the vaccine may be a baby step towards developing "the holy grail of influenza vaccines" -- or a universal flu vaccine sometime in the future, he said.
"You try not to make it sound like you're trying to save the world," he said. "But I think everyone wants to have a part in something."
Reach the reporter at ann.censky@asu.edu.
