After just a couple of small changes to a single gene in a pandemic flu virus, it no longer passes efficiently between lab animals. That finding reveals a simple way in which avian-flu strains, such as the bird-flu strains now looming in Asia, could morph into strains that have pandemic-causing potential, say researchers.
The scientists, led by Terrence Tumpey of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, worked with a reconstructed version of the 1918-flu virus (SN: 10/8/05, p.
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