good news folks:

[alan22]

well it looks like Ligocyte is sticking to the blueprints on their norovirus vaccine. the phase 1 vaccine trial is scheduled to start the fourth quarter this year. Glaxo is an investor in the company if any investors out there are interested in buying some stock. if the trials prove fruitful, the stock is likely to benefit. i'm going to look into it. this is good news for us, folks. anyway, here is the latest:

www.ligocyte.com/pdf/norovirus.pdf

[alan22]

it looks like they are on the nyse.com. the name of the company is GlaskoSmithKline and the symbol is GSK. read their "profile" - looks like they are a global healthcare group engaged in anything and everything involving health care discovery, research and produccts.

[mars]

Wow that sounds amazing!


Its a big step in the right direction, and it would be really wonderful if one day there was a vaccine against sv*s. M x

[crimgoddess]

Although I couldn't understand a lot of the gobbledygook scientific terminology they are using, I notice that they don't acknowledge the fact that noroviruses have tendency to mutate, and how this supposed vaccine is to account for this. If anything, I am worried that the widespread use of this vaccine would mean the virus(es) mutating to bypass this and becoming immune to the vaccine/MORE severe- kind of like the antibacterial soap phenomena (it doesn't kill all the bacteria, so the small portion that survive become stronger and thus more immune).


Bottom line- I'm not convinced.


*amber*

[alan22]

yes crim they are fully aware of the viruses mutating capabilities. it would be similar to the current respiratory influenza vaccines that have to be changed each year due to new emerging strains, etc.

there has been some chatter about a new emerging strain/variant that is currently circulating in the UK. it is being coined Genotype II.4 which was first detected in december of 2005. it has also been reported in the netherlands, france and denmark and two of the latest cruise ship outbreaks have been identified as the new variant. the new genotype is also unseasonable - meaning it has been peaking in or around summer months. regardless, experts suspect that this will be the new emerging strain.

the previous global circulating strain was the "farmington hills" strain which first emerged in 2002 in farmington hills, michigan and was later largely repsonsible for the 2002-2004 gastrointestinal cruise ship outbreaks.