Because flu viruses mutate so fast, the only way to stop them is
to destroy their ability to evolve. That's the key to creating a
universal flu vaccine... and now we may have found the secret to
creating one, and wiping out the flu. There's already a bunch of
potential universal vaccines for a wide variety of flu strains
in development, and a few have entered clinical trials. But one
class of these so-called cross-protective vaccines could prove
particularly powerful in going on the offensive against the flu.
According to a team of Princeton researchers, the two crucial
points are making the flu less severe once you've contracted it
— which would greatly cut down on the contagiousness of the
virus — and more importantly, targeting the parts of the virus
that are the most unchanging and least adaptable. That may seem
counter-intuitive, since the whole reason why the flu is so
difficult to fight back against is its super-charged evolution.
But that's the whole point — it makes no sense to go after the
constantl