Newswise — How many lives could be saved if we could peer into a "crystal ball" and see what medical threats loom in the future? Mount Sinai School of Medicine Researchers may have achieved the medical equivalent when they developed and patented a technique to reconstruct and characterize the Spanish flu of 1918-- a flu so deadly that it took the lives of 20-50 million people worldwide in one short year.
Understanding what went so terribly wrong with the 1918 Spanish Flu may help us predict future pandemics and develop novel vaccines and treatments today. As the worldwide community is closely watching—and fearing—the Avian Bird Flu, this research couldn't be more timely or crucial.
Leading the 1918 Spanish Flu research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine is Adolfo Garcia-Sastra, Ph.D. of Microbiology and Peter Palese, Ph.D, Professor and Chairman of Microbiology. They developed and patented a technique called reverse genetics, or Plasmid Rescue Technology, to reconstruct the virus. Drs. Sastra and Palese worked with colleague Christopher Basler, Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, the Centers for Disease Control, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture to characterize the virus.
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