WASHINGTON -- In an isolation ward of a Baltimore hospital, up to 30 volunteers will participate this April in a bold experiment: A vaccine made with a live version of the most notorious bird flu will be sprayed into their noses.

First, scientists are dripping that vaccine into the tiny nostrils of mice. It doesn't appear harmful -- researchers have weakened and genetically altered the virus so no one should get sick or spread germs -- and it protects the animals enough to try in people.

'HIGH-RISK, HIGH-REWARD'

This is essentially FluMist for bird flu, and the hope is that, in the event of a flu pandemic, immunizing people through their noses could provide faster, more effective protection than the troublesome shots -- made with a killed virus -- the nation is struggling to produce.

If it works, this new vaccine frontier may not just protect against the bird flu strain, called H5N1, considered today's top health threat. It offers the potential for rapid, off-the-shelf protection against whatever novel variation of the constantly evolving influenza virus shows up next -- through a library of live- virus nasal sprays that the National Institutes of Health plans to freeze.

"It's high-risk, high-reward" research, said Dr. Brian Murphy, who heads the NIH lab where Dr. Kanta Subbarao is brewing the nasal sprays -- including one for a different bird flu strain that appeared safe in the first crucial human testing last summer.

"It might fail, but if it's successful, it might prevent hundreds of thousands of cases" of the next killer flu, Murphy said.

DIFFERENT BIRD FLUS

FluMist is the nation's nasal-spray vaccine that prevents regular winter flu. Developed largely through Murphy's lab, it's the only flu vaccine made with live but weakened influenza viruses.

The project, a collaboration with FluMist manufacturer MedImmune Inc., piggybacks genetics technology onto that vaccine to create a line of FluMist-like sprays against different bird flus.

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