Simon Fraser University researchers studying the evolutionary history of flu viruses have found that a new quantitative analysis of how they evolved may help predict future strains. The research draws on a field known as phylogenetics, which focuses on how groups of organisms are evolutionarily related, and is published in the journal Science Advances.
Researchers used large phylogenetic ‘trees’ to predict which strains are most likely to grow during the upcoming flu season, and determined that this approach was moderately effective in detecting future strains of the influenza virus, and could be another tool in the toolbox to guide seasonal flu vaccine development.
