A new flu vaccine developed by EU-funded researchers has shown promise in clinical trials, according to the European Commission, which has also released details of the first flu-related projects to receive funding under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

The RD-3 vaccine is an outcome of the FLUPLAN (Preparing for an influenza pandemic) project, which was funded under the Fifth Framework Programme's 'Quality of life' Thematic Programme. The project partners embarked on a safety/efficacy Phase I clinical trial involving 60 volunteers at the end of 2006.

Early results show that the drug is safe and does not cause serious side effects in healthy people. Furthermore, when a special substance was added to the vaccine to make it more powerful, the volunteers' immune systems responded accordingly.

The vaccine was designed to protect against the H7N1 strain of the disease. Although the focus is currently on the H5N1 subtype, the researchers believe that H7 strains of the disease also have the potential to cause a full-blown pandemic. H7N1 was behind a lethal outbreak of influenza among Italian poultry in 1999, and in 2003 an outbreak of the related H7N7 strain in the Netherlands saw 80 people become infected. One person died of the disease.

Producing the H7N1 vaccine was no easy task for the project team; due to its highly virulent nature, H7N1 cannot be manufactured in the same way as standard influenza vaccines. Instead the researchers used a technique called reverse genetics to alter the H7 protein and so make the virus safe. The process also modified the virus so that it could be grown in mammalian cell lines as well as the more commonly used poultry eggs. Using a mammalian host for the virus makes large scale vaccine production both easier and safer.

According to the project partners, the tools developed during the project can be adapted to other strains of the disease, including H5N1, relatively easily, thereby increasing Europe's pandemic preparedness.

'By working together we can achieve so much,' commented European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik. 'This project is just one example of how a European cooperation can lead to concrete results in areas that really matter to Europeans.'

The European Commission's commitment to influenza research was further underlined with the announcement of the first projects in the field to be funded under FP7. Of 44 influenza-related project proposals received by the Commission, 11 have been pre-selected for funding. The projects selected are set to receive some €27 million between them, and they address issues such as diagnostics, drug and vaccine development and capacity building.

Among the projects is the AsiaFluCap initiative, which aims to help the health systems in Asian countries improve their operational planning so that they can cope better with an influenza pandemic. Meanwhile the goal of the NASPANVAC project is to develop a user-friendly, intranasally delivered vaccine against the highly pathogenic H5 and H7 strains of the disease. The researchers hope that by avoiding the need for injections, their vaccine will be suitable for rapid mass vaccination programmes.

One of the major challenges posed by the flu virus is its ability to mutate rapidly. The FluDrugStrategy project aims to find new antiviral molecules which will be less sensitive to viral mutation.

Early diagnosis is vital to successful treatment and pandemic control. The Fluarray project will develop powerful yet simple and affordable tools which will be able to test for a large number of different influenza types. This will enable small laboratories or veterinary clinics to carry out diagnostic tests which are currently only possible in major research institutions.

In the coming weeks the European Commission will enter into contract negotiations with the partners of the selected projects. This latest round of projects brings total Commission funding for influenza research to over €90 million since 2001.

Copyright © European Communities, 2007. Neither the Commission of the European Communities, nor any person acting on its behalf, is responsible for the use, which might be made of the attached information. The attached information is drawn from the Community R&D Information Service (CORDIS). The CORDIS services are carried on the CORDIS Host - http://cordis.europa.eu . Access to CORDIS is currently available free-of-charge.