メディエイゴ

An experimental(1) flu vaccine(2) made in insect cells(3) -- not in eggs, where flu vaccines currently(4) available in the United States are grown -- is safe and as effective as conventional(5) vaccines in protecting people against the flu, according to(6) results published in the April 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Removing eggs from the flu vaccine manufacturing process(7) is one option for health officials(8) seeking to protect the population from seasonal flu(9) as well as a potential(10) bird-flu(11) pandemic(12). Using eggs to grow vaccine takes time; a flu vaccine that relies on(13) a different technology is capable of(14) being produced in large amounts(15) much more quickly, a key advantage(16) if a bird flu pandemic were to occur.

"Eggs can be very cumbersome(17) to work with(18)," said John Treanor, M.D., the flu expert at the University of Rochester Medical Center who led the study of 460 people reported in JAMA. "When you need hundreds of millions of(19) fertilized eggs(20), you're dealing with(21) a whole host of(22) agricultural issues(23), as well as scientific concerns regarding(24) the flu virus(25) itself. Flu viruses can be temperamental(26), and it’s not always an easy matter to(27) get the virus to grow as you want in eggs."

The use of cell culture systems(28) to grow vaccines -- using viruses as tiny factories to churn out(29) mass amounts of(30) vaccines -- is a growing business. A similar technology using human cell lines(31) is used to produce the hepatitis B vaccine(32), while one form of a vaccine against human papilloma virus(33) is made using the same insect cell line(34) used in the JAMA study.