If you can stomach the flu for 10 days, SLU’s new Center for Vaccine Development Extended Stay Research Unit can offer you a room with a view.
This carefully quarantined unit, which was completed April 15, was developed out of the fifth floor of the Salus Center, which used to be part of the Water Tower Inn. It’s still hospitable: The renovation kept many of the spacious rooms, complete with lofty windows and private bathrooms, as well as the hotel’s original blue and gold carpet.
“The fleurs-de-lis scream St. Louis,” explains Dr. Daniel Hoft, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Allergy & Immunology at SLU and leader of the project.
Residents will also have comfortable common areas, catered food, and straight-shot views of downtown.
But their stay is hardly a vacation.
Famous for its work combatting infectious disease, SLU is one of a handful of research centers nationwide charged by the U.S. government with developing a universal flu vaccine. The Extended Stay Research Unit was developed in response to that grant (though it will be used for other research as well). The immediate goal, Hoft says, is “to be more protective and ideally develop a universal flu vaccine,” so researchers don’t have to struggle every year to target the most recent strain.
That’s where the Extended Stay Research Unit comes in. Participants will be vaccinated with a standard dose, a heightened dose, or a placebo. The vaccine will then be challenged by various virus strains.
“You don’t know how effective a vaccine is until it’s used on someone who’s infected with the virus,” Hoft explains.
SLU’s new unit is the only one in the nation with aerosol containment. For a long time, the flu was thought to be transmitted by large droplets, not through the air. However, recent studies done by the CDC have found that the virus is present in the aerosol droplets. So in order to safely test the flu virus, SLU had to take measures to prevent the transmission of the virus through the air. This includes masks that filter out bacteria and doors on both sides of each room, creating negative pressure so that clean air flows into the room and infected air does not flow out.
The unit has 24 rooms, some of which can accommodate more than one person at a time, allowing for a large number of participants during each trial. A pilot test with just five participants will work out of the logistics, and Hoft projects that by 2019, his team will be hard at work on trials to develop a universal flu vaccine.
No more depressing newscasts, after you valiantly get your flu shot, announcing that this year’s vaccine wasn’t quite a match…
