Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus Dr. Youngner and his research colleagues are using biochemical and molecular techniques to define the phenotypes that evolve during persistent viral infections. In particular, Dr. Youngner is investigating the dominance of mutants recovered from persistence over the replication of wild-type parental virus during mixed infection and the mechanism of this trans dominance. The use of trans-dominant mutants as a new antiviral strategy is also being explored. Dr. Youngner and Patricia Whitaker-Dowling, Ph.D., associate professor, have developed the live, attenuated virus used in the first equine intranasal influenza vaccine.
Scientific literature reports tests of a human vaccine based on the same technology.
These human studies have been underway for approximately 10 years at institutions outside of the University of Pittsburgh and a human intranasal flu vaccine may be available in the near future. Youngner, J. S . Youngner, J. S. , Whitaker-Dowling, P., Chambers, T. M., Rushlow, K. E., and Sebring, R. Derivation and characterization of a live attenuated equine influenza vaccine virus.