Will the flu vaccine work for you? Answer may be in your genes
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center News Sep 15, 2017
Set of 9 genes that predicts flu response in adults under 35 could be first step to personalized vaccine.
For the first time, researchers have uncovered a set of genes that predicts whether the flu vaccine will work in adults 35 years old or younger.
The prediction, undertaken by a nationwide team of researchers known as the Human Immunology Project Consortium, came to light through a Big Data-scale analysis of more than 32,000 genes from more than 500 people who had received the flu vaccine in different parts of the U.S. during several different flu seasons.
The study, published August 25 in the journal Science Immunology, looked at adults 35 years old and under, as well as those 60 and older, who had received the vaccine.
That variety of data was important to make sure the researchers were capturing a signature that could apply to a larger population, said Dr. Raphael Gottardo, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a senior author on the study. But the result was a large and complex dataset that required new computational tools to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The analysis pinpointed a set of nine genes linked to the immune response to flu shots, a discovery that could lead to better flu vaccines for those who donÂt currently benefit as much from the yearly shot, Gottardo said. He emphasized, however, that results like these donÂt mean people shouldnÂt bother getting vaccinated. In fact, the opposite is true, even in years that the flu vaccine is less effective.
ÂThere is this thinking that the flu vaccine just doesnÂt work, which is just not true, Gottardo said. ÂIt can be highly effective in preventing infection, but I think we have a way to potentially improve it further by looking at these baseline responses.Â
Those baseline responses could one day let clinicians sort people into two groups: those with a gene signature that shows they will benefit the most from the standard flu vaccine and those without it, who may need a different type or amount of the flu vaccine to boost their protection.
Their findings could be the first step to a personalized flu vaccine, Gottardo said.
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For the first time, researchers have uncovered a set of genes that predicts whether the flu vaccine will work in adults 35 years old or younger.
The prediction, undertaken by a nationwide team of researchers known as the Human Immunology Project Consortium, came to light through a Big Data-scale analysis of more than 32,000 genes from more than 500 people who had received the flu vaccine in different parts of the U.S. during several different flu seasons.
The study, published August 25 in the journal Science Immunology, looked at adults 35 years old and under, as well as those 60 and older, who had received the vaccine.
That variety of data was important to make sure the researchers were capturing a signature that could apply to a larger population, said Dr. Raphael Gottardo, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a senior author on the study. But the result was a large and complex dataset that required new computational tools to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The analysis pinpointed a set of nine genes linked to the immune response to flu shots, a discovery that could lead to better flu vaccines for those who donÂt currently benefit as much from the yearly shot, Gottardo said. He emphasized, however, that results like these donÂt mean people shouldnÂt bother getting vaccinated. In fact, the opposite is true, even in years that the flu vaccine is less effective.
ÂThere is this thinking that the flu vaccine just doesnÂt work, which is just not true, Gottardo said. ÂIt can be highly effective in preventing infection, but I think we have a way to potentially improve it further by looking at these baseline responses.Â
Those baseline responses could one day let clinicians sort people into two groups: those with a gene signature that shows they will benefit the most from the standard flu vaccine and those without it, who may need a different type or amount of the flu vaccine to boost their protection.
Their findings could be the first step to a personalized flu vaccine, Gottardo said.
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