Adolfo Garcia-Sastre

And they do so to avoid pre-existing immunity.

And the vaccine tries to cover the strains that are circulating.

So we make the vaccine for whatever is going to be circulating this year.

And the prediction comes from the surveillance that has been done for influenza to see what is circulating at any time in the year.

And sometimes we miss it for at least one of the components.

This year, for example, we miss it.

For H3s, there was this newest strain that became quickly very prevalent, and this one was not very well covered by the H3 component of the vaccine.

Still, it provides you some efficacy, but instead of having perhaps an efficacy of 70%,

prevention from disease, then it goes down to 30% because it's mismatched.

So there are two types of barriers, the scientific barriers, and the other thing is more about

what type of resources you need to put, which is more of an economical reason than a scientific reason.

The scientific reason is because influenza has conserved areas.

They don't change, correct.

That's what I mean by conserved.

But not every conserved area is able to induce an immune response that we'll be able to protect.

So you need to identify these ones that are able to protect.

It's like, let's imagine that flu is a cow.

So let's imagine it's a cow.

Already there.

So you want to get protection from a cow, you need to target areas in the cow that will prevent damage to you, right?