FASTER, PLEASE: ‘Universal’ flu vaccine effective in animals: Self-assembling nanoparticles could make updating seasonal vaccines easier. “Current flu vaccines use inactivated whole viruses and must be regularly remade to target the strains most likely to cause illness in the coming year. But the new nanoparticles would require fewer updates because they induce the production of antibodies that neutralize a wider range of flu strains. They could even protect against varieties of flu that have not yet emerged. . . . The antibodies induced by the nanoparticles provide such broad protection because they latch onto sites in HA that are common to different flu strains — one on the head of the protein that recognizes host cells, and another on the stem that helps the virus to penetrate cells.”