“There are hundreds of strains of bird flu, and most of them don’t infect humans, or even mammals,” Stephen Cusack told BioWorld. “There are two main reasons for that.” To be able to cause an infection, a virus “has to be able to get into the cell, and for that it needs a receptor,” Cusack said. For influenza viruses, those receptors are hemagglutinin receptors, and they differ in subtle but important ways between birds and mammals.
Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. has announced its pandemic influenza vaccine is on track to enter a phase I clinical trial in Q4 of 2024. The vaccine, ARCT-2304, utilizes Arcturus’ STARR self-amplifying mRNA and LUNAR delivery platform technologies to deliver antigens designed to elicit a protective response against the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.
With the COVID-19 pandemic still visible in the rearview mirror, the World Health Organization (WHO) is taking no chances as it preps for human avian influenza, or H5N1, a subtype of influenza A.
A preclinical trial in mice and ferrets of an experimental mRNA vaccine against the H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus generated neutralizing antibodies and prevented severe illness and mortality of the animals.
