Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found a way to predict whether someone exposed to the flu virus is likely to become ill.
Purvesh Khatri, PhD, associate professor of medicine and of biomedical data science, and his team used a computational approach to pinpoint a blood-based genetic biomarker to determine an individual's susceptibility to the disease.
"We've been after this for about four years," Khatri said. "To our knowledge, it's the first biomarker that shows susceptibility to influenza, across multiple strains."
The biomarker is a gene called KLRD1, and it essentially acts as a proxy for the presence of a special type of immune cell that may be a key to stamping out nascent flu infection. Put simply: the more of this cell type found in a person's blood, the lower their flu susceptibility. The research even hints at new avenues for pursuing a broadly applicable flu vaccine.
A paper describing the work will be published online June 14 in Genome Medicine. Khatri is the senior author. Graduate student Erika Bongen is the lead author.
[...] Khatri said his findings could help health professionals understand who's at the highest risk for flu infection. "If, for example, there's a flu epidemic going on, and Tamiflu supplies are limited, this data could help identify who should be prophylactically treated first," Khatri said.
Khatri emphasizes that for now, the link between KLRD1 levels and influenza susceptibility is only an association. The next step, he said, is to find the mechanism.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday June 16 2018, @12:39AM (2 children)
A gene that is all upside and no downside? I'm skeptical of that. More often, there's some tradeoff. Large organisms are a huge mess of compromises, balancing acts, serendipity, and adaptations.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 16 2018, @12:58AM
Buy our flu vaccine, good Goy! Or let your tax dollars pay for it, either way, you should get it so you don't get sick every year like everybody else who gets the vaccine!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:10PM
One of the side effects will be "skin reaction":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SJS-inducing_substances [wikipedia.org]