Flu vs. Immunity

The seasonal flu causes 500,000 or more deaths and severe illnesses worldwide every year. Scientists have found a potential way to improve the future flu vaccines but discovering how the flu evolves to escape immunity. The flu vaccine is effective by exposing the body to three major types of inacitive flu, making the immune system develop antibodies that eliminate the flu virus. The flu virus evolves every 2 or 3 years by substitution of amino acids, and different combinations of amino acids. They have found that the seasonal flu develops new strains by substitution of typically one amino acid, when before this research it was thought that there was four. They had also found this substitution occurs at only 7 different sites, when it was previously believed there was 130 sites. These sites were found to be located near the receptor binding site, which is where the virus binds to and infects hosts. The virus needs this site to recognize the cells it needs to cause infection, and would not change so close to the site unless it needed to, as it is important for the virus. 
This research can pave the road for future improvements to the flu vaccine, that could save thousands of live.
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