In 1988, in an apparent swine flu infection in pigs in Wisconsin, there was antibody evidence of virus transmission from the patient to health care workers who had contact with the patient, the CDC said.
But studying the structure of the antibody and the protein on the flu virus that it targets could make it that much more likely for a universal vaccine to be developed.
Now, researchers are taking the knowledge from that study to work toward an antibody treatment for swine flu, the 2009 H1N1 virus that has sickened hundreds of people worldwide.
Once a patient's cancer cells are isolated in the laboratory, the gene responsible for producing the antibody is extracted and added to the "tobacco mosaic virus".