Peter Palese, PhD, chair of the department of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses the microbiology of flu vaccination and his work on a universal flu vaccine.
“In the U.S. alone every year, estimates are that between 30,000 and 50,000 people die of influenza despite the availability of the vaccine. The ideal vaccine would be one which is given once in a lifetime, and it would provide protection against all influenza strains. We hope that we will achieve the same with our universal influenza vaccine, which we are developing at Mount Sinai.”