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Thursday, June 20, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Earlier this month, a 
team of scientists published 
a study in Nature Medi-
cine journal that could lead 
researchers closer to a uni-
versal vaccine for influenza, 
commonly known as the 
flu. Principal investigators 
include Aubree Gordon, Uni-
versity of Michigan assistant 
professor of epidemiology at 
the School of Public Health, 
and Florian Krammer, pro-
fessor of microbiology at the 
Icahn School of Medicine at 
Mount Sinai.
Krammer said the team 
found that a region of the 
flu virus is conserved from 
strain to strain that could 
provide protection for the 
human 
immune 
system. 
The conserved region is 
called the membrane proxi-
mal stalk and it’s part of the 
hemagglutinin, which has 
a head section that changes 
frequently.
When stalk antibodies 
bind to this region, the virus 
is neutralized by blocking 
fusion of viral and endosom-
al membranes, which inhib-

its development of the HA. 
There are multiple mecha-
nisms involved in the path-
way and the researchers still 
don’t know which mecha-
nism is most important for 
protection in humans.
“The head changes all the 
time. That’s why we have to 
get the flu shot every year 
because there’s so much 
variation … That the anti-
bodies that recognize this 
year’s flu shot usually don’t 
recognize 
next 
year’s,” 
Krammer said. “If you want 
a vaccine that gives protec-
tion for a long time, you can’t 
target the head, but target-
ing the stalk might be an 
option.”
The eight-month obser-
vational study relied on 
data from a cohort in Nica-
ragua. Krammer said the 
lab developed specialized 
assays, known as an inves-
tigative procedure, to con-
duct analysis of the samples 
from the cohort. One of the 
assays his lab used is called 
an enzyme-linked immuno-
sorbent assay, which was a 
binding assay used to deter-
mine antibody titers or con-
centrations.

Krammer said the bind-
ing assay could be done 
quickly and easily standard-
ized, which could allow 
studies in the future to use 
the same assay.
In an email to The Daily, 
Fatima Amanat, a graduate 
student at ISMMS, one of 
the researchers on the proj-
ect, said the team’s research 
is important because the flu 
is easily transmitted.
“Translational 
research 
is 
extremely 
essential,” 
Amanat 
said. 
“Research 
that allows us to take what 
we learn from small ani-
mal 
models 
and 
under-
stand immune response in 
humans is very important 
nowadays.”
Krammer said his study 
could lead to a universal 
flu vaccine—a vaccine that 
could provide better and 
longer-lasting 
protection 
against multiple subtypes 
of the virus. The National 
Institute of Allergy and 
Infectious Diseases outlined 
the importance of creating a 
universal influenza vaccine 
in a paper last July. Kram-
mer added the study was 
partially funded by NIAID.

Amanat 
agrees 
with 
Krammer and said the study 
will provide an outline for 
other scientists that plan to 
test new vaccines.
“Influenza virus is a huge 
public health burden and 
despite having annual vac-
cination, influenza virus can 
cause widespread disease,” 
Amanat said. “It is great to 
now finally have a vaccine 
strategy in place that tar-
gets the stalk domain of HA 
and provides protection in 
humans.”
Krammer said another 
benefit to a universal flu vac-
cine would mean greater 
accessibility for a larger 
group of people. He said 
other diseases like measles 
and smallpox have higher 
vaccination rates than the 
flu, with it becoming uni-
versal, this might lead more 
people to consider vaccina-
tion.
“There’s people who are 
really anti-vaccination and 
I don’t think they’re easy to 
convince to get vaccinated,” 
Krammer said.

Read more at michigandaily.com

NEWS

The University of Michi-
gan Ford School of Public 
Policy was the target of phish-
ing scams this past week after 
Public Policy students, faculty 
and staff received an email 
last Tuesday from phishers 
masquerading as staff mem-
bers inquiring about their 
recipients’ 
schedule 
avail-
ability.
In an email statement 
to The Daily, Sol Bermann, 
University 
interim 
chief 
information security officer, 
explained phishing is a phe-
nomenon that affects organi-
zations worldwide.
“Phishing 
remains 
the 
most common method used 
by cyber-criminals to get 
unauthorized access to sys-
tems and data,” Bermann 
wrote. “U-M, and organi-
zations the world over, are 
constantly being plagued by 
phishing attacks. There is no 
technical way to stop them 
all. Instead, we rely on the 
University 
community 
to 
understand how to identify 
and avoid phishing at work 
and in their personal lives.”
In an interview, Ber-
mann told The Daily while 
Google’s barriers act as 
the biggest defense against 
phishing attempts, the Uni-
versity supplements such 
systems with its own tools, 
like a Chrome extension 
built by Bermann’s team and 
Information Assurance.
“We have a lot of threat 
intelligence tools that feed 
our network defenses, like 
our firewall or intrusion 
detection devices,” Bermann 

said.
Bermann also said while 
phishing 
attempts 
have 
become sophisticated over the 
years, they are not nuanced 
enough to assume phishers 
would specifically target the 
Public Policy School or even 
higher education institutions 
as a whole. Part of the rea-
son, he explained, is because 
they’re often sent by the mil-
lions.
He expressed his belief the 
recent Public Policy School 
phishing storm is part of such 
a widespread attack.
“Those seem more of a 
routine phishing attack, and 
I don’t know that it’s just 
attacking or just targeting 
Ford,” Bermann noted.
So far this year, the Univer-
sity has released 26 phishing 
alerts. One email imperson-
ated the University Library, 
while another appeared to 
be from University President 
Mark Schlissel.
As far back as 2005, stu-
dents and staff fell victim to 
phishing emails that asked 
for their TCF Bank account 
information. 
There 
have 
been several more instances 
reported over the years, such 
as fake payroll emails in 2018 
and spear phishing attacks 
that targeted University staff 
in 2013.
To 
help 
prevent 
such 
attacks, the University imple-
mented 
Duo 
Two-Factor 
Authentication 
early 
last 
year and has a section titled 
“Phishing 
and 
Suspicious 
Emails” on its Safe Comput-
ing website.

Ford School 
responds to 
latest phishing 
scam at ‘U’ 

Professor leads study examining potential universal vaccination for influenza

Officials warn hisers pretend to be staff
members inquiring about student ability

Illustration by Kathryn Halverson

Read more at michigandaily.com

‘U’ researcher on team close 
to discovering flu vaccine

KRYSTAL HUR
Daily Staff Reporter

MICHAL RUPRECHT
Daily Staff Reporter

