What horses can tell us now about the coming human flu pandemic

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A computer-generated three-dimensional model of the molecular structure of the H7 influenza virus coat protein (hemagglutinin or HA for short) the molecule responsible for enabling the influenza virus to recognize the hosts cell and invade it.
A computer-generated three-dimensional model of the molecular structure of the H7 influenza virus coat protein (hemagglutinin or HA, for short), the molecule responsible for enabling the influenza virus to recognize the host's cell and invade it.

Stored safely in a freezer at Cornell's James A. Baker Institute for Animal Health are samples of the virus thought to be most like the one public health experts expect someday to afflict record numbers of the world's population. The virus was collected in 1973 during an outbreak of equine influenza at a Florida racetrack. Dorothy Holmes, an infectious disease specialist in Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine, had obtained samples of the virus with the intention of using it to create nasal spray vaccines for horses.


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