Researchers at the Jean Mérieux/INSERM facility in Lyon, France, are working with the highly contagious H1N1 virus and its more lethal relation H5N1, better known as the avian flu. The scientists are attempting to determine if H1N1 could reassort with H5N1, blending their genetic material, and whether a resulting virus could have the worst traits of the original viruses.

There's a method behind creating this superflu. The facility has been working to anticipate the path current and future pandemics might take so that precautions and treatments can be developed. The team is attempting to determine when reassortment between the two viruses would produce a viable product, and which reassortments — if any — are likely to occur.

Jean Mérieux/INSERM is a biosecurity level four facility, and the researchers must wear spacesuit-like hazmat attire when in the lab, but the researchers must watch out for scratches and bites from the mice and ferrets used to test the virulence and transmissibility of the viruses.

Swine flu: One killer virus, three key questions [Nature via Metafilter]

Here are five pieces of wisdom that we've gleaned from the last six months (and handful of days):

President Obama Is The Greatest Hero Of All
As his many comic book appearances have demonstrated, there's no end to our current president's ability to save the world from any genre of threat. Amazing Spider-Man has him fighting supervillains, Youngblood shows him carrying massive laserguns to shoot renegade soldiers taking over the White House, Drafted gives us an alien-invasion-battlin' Barack and Barack The Barbarian brings everything back down to sword and sorcery basics. He's like a modern-day Arnold Schwarzenegger - and enough to make us wonder just how the comic industry would've dealt with John McCain winning the election instead.

Threats To Humanity Are Getting Weaker
Last year, it was the Large Hadron Collider and the possibility that it would rip existence apart when someone flipped the switch, and this year, it was... Swine Flu. It can't just be me, can it? I mean, Swine Flu... Doesn't that seem like a step down from the technological "Our Quest For Knowledge May Destroy Us All" conceptual genius that threatened us last year? Even calling it "the H1N1 Influenza Virus" still sounds kind of shit. Okay, so there's no chance of "hardon" spoonerisms, but still: Pandemics? Haven't we done that already? I'm holding out hope that sewer monsters will brighten the remaining months of the year, however.

The BBC Should Stop Making Us Feel Old
Yes, we know that it's just one of those aimless homilies that you know that you're getting old when the policemen and doctors start looking younger, but selecting a twelve year old to be the new Doctor Who really doesn't make us feel very good about ourselves nonetheless. I know that we started with the oldest of the Doctors and have progressively gotten younger since then - well, roughly - but between David Tennant and Matt Smith, I'm convinced that we'll have our first pre-teen Timelord by 2015. And then, the next one will be a little baby, just like in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Joss Whedon Can Defy The Laws Of Nature
If nothing else, the renewal of Dollhouse proves that he can defy the laws of television. I wouldn't put money on him being unable to fly if he really wanted to.

Fuck Dystopia
Terminator Salvation and Watchmen - two downbeat movies offering popcorn versions of pessimistic views of humanity ("Ultimately, man's greed and laziness will lead us to become disconnected from our fellow man and controlled by the machines and mechanisms that we created to ease our daily existences - but doesn't this slow-motion action sequence look hot?") - both failed to meet expectation at the box office, while Star Trek's hopeful, colorful version of a future that may be too lens-flarey to be cuddly but is nonetheless positive surpassed expectations. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles also died a slow death on television. The obvious conclusion? No-one wants to their entertainment to end with the lesson "We're all screwed." The Dark Knight's glossy hopelessness was so last year, people. We hadn't experienced so much of the economic downturn and/or the hopetrain of Obama back then. We were all so much more innocent and desperate to be mistreated by our movies. (Along the same lines - Size Matters: Terminator, featuring human-sized robots, fails to become a hit. Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, featuring giant robots, breaks box office records. I think you can see what I'm saying here. See also: Robot On Robot Action Is More Acceptable Than Robot On Batman Action and Megan Fox Is Hotter Than Moon Bloodgood. Sorry, But There It Is.)

Bolstered with this new knowledge, we look forward to what the rest of the year can teach us - presuming, of course, that the sewer monsters don't decide to team up with Joss Whedon and end the world before then. Pray for us.

According to New Scientist, two separate teams of scientists in the Netherlands and the US have discovered through testing on animals that the pandemic strain of the virus differs from other seasonal strains in the way that it binds with its victims:

Both groups found that the seasonal virus binds almost exclusively to cells in the ferrets' noses. But, the pandemic H1N1 binds deeper, in the lung's trachea, bronchi and bronchioles. The pandemic virus also replicated more, and caused more damage, though none of the ferrets were severely ill... The US group found also found binding in the intestines, explaining the unusual nausea and vomiting seen in some cases of the pandemic flu. Both teams concluded that the virus could adapt further to humans, which might make it more severe.

So all we have to do to be protected from the pandemic is quickly evolve less-lung- and intenstine-centric ways of existing, right...? We'll get right on that.

Revealed: How pandemic swine flu kills [New Scientist]

Announcing the change in pandemic status level, the World Health Organization made clear that this did not mean that the virus was any more dangerous than previously thought, but simply that it was more widespread; the decision to upgrade the status came after it emerged that the virus was spreading freely not only in Mexico and North America, but also Australia, Britain, Chile and Spain. In addition, WHO director general Margaret Chan said, further spread of the virus was inevitable at this point, adding that "we have to brace ourselves for more deaths."

Currently, the virus has officially spread to 74 countries, with over 27,000 cases identified, and 141 deaths.

With 27,000 cases, swine flu is officially a pandemic [The Independent]

According to New Scientist, scientists at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel have given two diabetic monkeys new pancreases grown from pig embryos. The new organs were successfully infiltrated by monkey blood vessels and made insulin, but the tests don't necessarily prove anything definitively; the monkeys were also given drugs during the trial, which may have skewed results. Dr. David Cooper, of the University of Pittsburgh, isn't impressed:

They've not made the case that these monkeys needed less immunosuppressive therapy... Nor am I convinced the approach has advantages over transplantation of adult or neonatal pig [organ].

Tests are continuing, but I have to admit to loving the idea that scientists prove that pig embryos can make humans healthier while everyone is still worrying about swine flu. It's like science karma or something.

Pig embryos could provide tougher transplant organs [New Scientist]

The fake site bounce with me does an excellent job recreating the BBC style and look. We especially love all the graphic little zombie nods here and there.

British scientists Nicholas Grassly of Imperial College London and Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh have studied the virus' rate of spread, and discovered that it's much slower than many had thought... in fact, only just fast enough to keep itself from dying out:

If the new virus spreads from one infected person to the next at about the same speed as ordinary flu, that gives an idea of how many cases there may have been in that time. A mathematical model permits the calculation of an important variable called R0 – the number of additional people infected, on average, by each case. If R0 is less than one, an infection dies out.

Grassly also cautions that the estimate is very preliminary. But with the data available now, he gets an R0 of 1.16 – enough for the virus to keep going, but only just.

Don't celebrate just yet, however; New Scientist points out that the flu pandemic of 1918 first presented with a similarly low rate of spread (1.45) that jumped to 3.75 during a more deadly second wave. For now, though, here's hoping that the rate falls just that little bit further to take it over the edge.

First genetic analysis of swine flu reveals potency [New Scientist]

Led by Hong Kong medical researcher Jospeh Wu, the team used mathematical modeling to look at how a closed city like Hong Kong might respond to the outbreak of an epidemic with drug treatments. In particular, they were interested in what happens if the city responds by treating everybody with one drug, usually Tamiflu, vs. if they treat everybody with two drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza. Because flu viruses evolve resistance to drugs so quickly, their question was how best to knock the virus out quickly without it having a chance to evolve a resistance.

What they learned was that the best possible way to stop a pandemic from spreading was for every country to have stockpiles of two different antiviral drugs to treat flu: A primary stockpile and a secondary one. The first wave of cases should be treated with the secondary drug until it runs out, then the next wave should be treated with the primary drug. This knocks out the first wave of virus, and then just as it begins to evolve resistance hits it with a new drug. Apparently in scenarios where public health officials respond like this, using what's called "sequential drug multitherapy" or SMC, the spread of the virus is reduced significantly. "Monotherapy," or the treatment with just one drug, created a lot of drug-resistant flu strains and did not significantly impair the spread of the epidemic.

According to New Scientist:

The two strategies that used more than one drug decreased the number of people who finally became infected from 68 to 58 per cent. It also reduced the chance of resistance emerging from 38 to just two per cent, which would translate into a significant number of lives saved, says Wu.

Right now, swine flu is not resistant to either Tamiflu or Relenza, so their scenario is perfect for our current epidemic. Unfortunately, most nations only have a stockpile of one drug, generally Tamiflu. Let's take a look at all four scenarios.

According to the study Wu and colleagues published today in PLoS Medicine:

[Here are scenarios for] sequential multidrug chemotherapy in a global network of 105 cities. Hong Kong (HK) is the source of infection in the network with 30 wild-type seeds on day 0. Twenty-eight cities implement large-scale antiviral intervention: Hong Kong, London, New York, Geneva, and 24 other cities (randomly chosen for each stochastic realization). Cities that implemented SMC had a drug B stockpile coverage of 1%.Four scenarios are shown.

Here's what to look for in these maps. All of them show the virus starting in Hong Kong, and the blue spreading dots are attack rates from the flu (AR). As the blue slowly changes color through the rainbow, what you're seeing is a drug-resistant virus evolving. Red dots are 100% drug-resistant attack rates (RAR). Colors between show the attacks slowly developing higher percentages of drug-resistant strains.

(A) HK and all 27 cities implemented monotherapy.

(B) HK and all 27 cities implemented sequential multidrug chemotherapy (SMC).

(C) HK, New York. Geneva and 11 other randomly chosen cities implemented SMC; London and 13 other randomly chosen cities implemented monotherapy.

(D) Same as (C) except that HK did not implement SMC.

Bottom line: Based on these mathematical models, SMC is the best way to prevent the spread of flu, especially drug-resistant flu. As long as the country that is the source of the flu uses SMC, the treatment is effective even if many other countries still use monotherapy. Monotherapy will stop the spread of flu initially but then as drug-resistant strains evolve it will again explode into epidemic proportions. And the flu that spreads will be resistant to the single drug that most countries have stockpiled.

Here is the authors' full explanation, which is slightly technical but worth checking out:

If only monotherapy was used, the importation of resistance promoted the spread of the resistant strain and downstream populations had higher attack rates and drug-resistant attack rates, e.g., New York had a higher attack rate [AR] and drug-resistant attack rate [RAR] than London because the pandemic reached New York later, with a higher proportion of introduced infections being resistant. Population size also played a role. The small population of Geneva had a smaller RAR than London even though the two were hit at approximately the same time: smaller populations were less vulnerable to the local emergence of antiviral resistance because fewer cases were treated with drug A. We note that our city population sizes are only proxy measures for entire local populations which feed into major airports.

If all 28 populations that had stockpiles of antivirals implemented sequential multidrug chemotherapy (SMC) [giving first a secondary drug, then giving out a primary drug when the first runs out] rather than monotherapy, reductions in AR and RAR in these populations were similar to those in a single source population (scenario B). Therefore, the connectedness of cities had little impact on the effectiveness of SMC if all populations that implemented large-scale antiviral interventions adopted SMC. The effectiveness of SMC was attenuated (but was still significant) if only half of these 28 selected populations
adopted SMC (Scenario C). Interestingly, in this scenario, those populations that implemented only monotherapy (e.g., London) still benefited from the implementation of SMC in the other populations because fewer resistant cases were circulating within the network.

The source population was the key to the robustness of SMC as a resistance-limiting strategy at the global scale. If the source population implemented only monotherapy, then SMC had little benefit in any downstream population.

Read the complete paper [PDF] via PLoS Medicine

Image by Cynthia Goldsmith

28 Days Later
Disease: Rage virus
Released by: Animal rights activists
Symptoms: Zombification, flesh-eating
Any humanity left? UK is quarantined and left for dead. Rest of the world survives.



Invasion
Disease: Space fungus
Released by: It clings to the outside of the space shuttle, and when the shuttle crashes people pick up pieces of it and bring the disease into towns, where it spreads.
Symptoms: Lack of emotion, desire for world peace.
Any humanity left? Many people are infected but we're saved by an airborne antidote. We know the world has returned to normal when everybody starts going back to war again.



I Am Legend
Disease: Gene therapy delivered via virus gone wrong
Released by: Well-meaning liberal doctor trying to do good
Symptoms: Zombification, flesh-eating, fear of light.
Any humanity left? Just Will Smith, and (spoilers!) a tiny walled town in New England



Outbreak
Disease: Motaba virus (a fictional version of Ebola)
Released by: Bad guys selling illegal African monkeys to Americans
Symptoms: Barfy bloody death
Any humanity left? Sadly, almost all of humanity survives.



Rabid
Disease: Plastic surgery-induced armpit penis that drinks blood (did we mention this was directed by David Cronenberg in the 70s?)
Released by: Mad surgeon Dr. Keloid, operating on the main character (played by porn star Marilyn Chambers)
Symptoms: Growing a penis-shaped thing under your arm that drinks other people's blood, erases their memories, and turns them into zombies
Any humanity left? Disease is contained within the city.



Andromeda Strain (the miniseries)
Disease: Nano space virus thing
Released by: Fallen satellite
Symptoms: Totally disgusting bloody barfy skin covered in insta-bumps
Any humanity left? Saved by the CDC, but just barely



Doomsday
Disease: Reaper virus
Released by: Unknown, but centered in Scotland, which the UK walls off in a nation-wide quarantine
Symptoms: Death
Any humanity left? Yes, the immune. They have turned into cannibalistic punk rockers, medieval knights, and racecar drivers. Which makes the Reaper virus basically the most awesome thing to ever happen in the UK.



Doom
Disease: A 24th chromosome from Mars
Released by: Union Aerospace Corporation
Symptoms: If you are "good," you are made superhuman with mega-healing, and if you are "bad" you become a flesh-eating toothface with the ability to shoot your tongue at victims to infect them.
Any humanity left? Not on Mars.



World War Z
Disease: African rabies
Released by: Unknown - but thought to have begun in China
Symptoms: Undeath
Any humanity left? Yes, and the shattered survivors of the zombie wars are the subject of the novel, which is being made into a much-anticipated movie right now.



The Signal
Disease: Mind-altering signal sent via television and telephone in an Atlanta-like unnamed city
Released by: Unknown evil media conglomerate
Symptoms: Psychotic, murderous rage; hallucinations
Any humanity left? A few survive in the city; unknown how many more were affected in the world



Quarantine
Disease: Bioweapon
Released by: Doomsday cult
Symptoms: Foaming at the mouth, vampiric quest to bite people
Any humanity left: We see the disease spread rapidly through an apartment building, which is quarantined. There is a hint that the disease has already gotten out and cannot be stopped.

The virus may be called a "swine flu," but it mixes genes from pig, bird and human flus in a manner that the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention is calling "very unusual." There have been over 900 suspected cases in Mexico, with 18 confirmed deaths from it, and now scientists have identified cases in San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego, California that are "genetically identical" to 12 of those deaths. The disease presents with similar symptoms to a common flu, and can be passed between humans, leading to a WHO statement on Friday about the virus:

Because there are human cases associated with an animal influenza virus, and because of the geographical spread of multiple community outbreaks, plus the somewhat unusual age groups affected, these events are of high concern.

Currently, scientists are studying those who've contracted the virus in Texas and California, and using the data they gather there to calculate whether or not a pandemic should be declared. Me, I'm now hoping that my Walgreens flu shot has unforeseen magical properties.

Deadly new flu virus in US and Mexico may go pandemic [New Scientist]