A molecule from the slime of a colorful Indian frog kills some flu strains and could provide a promising route for new treatments. 
 
 In a study published today in the journal Immunity, researchers caught the Indian frog Hydrophylax bahuvistara and collected their skin secretions after mildly electrocuting them. (Don’t worry, the animals were returned to their natural habitat.) They then isolated several molecules from the secretions and tested them on human blood cells until they found one, called urumin, that killed flu viruses while not hurting the cells. Finally, they vaccinated mice with urumin and found that it protected them from a lethal amount of the H1 flu virus, the same strain responsible for the 2009 pandemic. We’re not quite at a frog slime vaccine yet, but it’s a first step toward a new way to fight the virus that doesn’t involve traditional antibiotics. 
 
 Frog mucus contains peptides, or short chains of amino acids. In today’s study, first scientists screened 32 frog peptides against various flu strains, and found that four of them could fight off the virus. But when the researchers put these peptides in a dish with human red blood cells, three of them killed the blood cells by punching holes in their cell membranes. So that’s out. 
 
 The fourth — urumin — was safe and killed flu viruses. (It’s named urumin after a whip-like Indian sword called the “urumi” which is from Kerala, the same region as the frog.) By using an electron microscope, the researchers saw that urumin completely destroyed the flu virus by binding to a specific protein found in many strains of flu. This makes it versatile, though not a cure-all: it didn’t work against a modern strain called H3N2. 
 
 Still, urumin could be promising when current drugs don’t work anymore. I, for one, am ready for my frog mucus treatment. ||||| Nasal gene spray inspired by llama antibodies could prevent all types of flu 
 
 Four llama antibodies and a harmless virus: This outlandish recipe could be the basis of a nasal spray designed to foil infection from all strains of influenza. The spray, containing a virus engineered to make a protein derived from the llama antibodies, has passed its first animal test, protecting mice from every known flu strain that infects humans, a research team reports. 
 
 Although the strategy must go through more testing before human trials can begin, researchers who have struggled to develop a "universal" vaccine against the highly mutable flu virus say it merits serious attention. The nasal spray could prove a boon to the elderly, who typically suffer most from flu and get only weak protection from existing vaccines. And unlike traditional influenza vaccines, which are tailormade each flu season to match the viruses in circulation, it could be stockpiled as protection against a flu pandemic. "This is a great story and shows the power of antibody engineering," says immunologist Antonio Lanzavecchia, a leading flu vaccine researcher at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Bellinzona, Switzerland. 
 
 Antibody engineer Joost Kolkman at Janssen Infectious Diseases in Beerse, Belgium, and his colleagues thought an unusual class of antibodies made by llamas and their camel cousins might serve as a weapon against flu. These antibodies are unusually small because they lack the "light" peptide chain that normally bulks up each arm of the Y-shaped proteins. Researchers can further pare down the remaining "heavy" chains to create so-called nanobodies, able to reach into crevices of viruses that their full-size counterparts can't touch. 
 
 To create nanobodies against the flu, the Janssen group injected llamas with a vaccine containing three different influenza viruses, as well as the viral surface protein, hemagglutinin, from two other flu strains. They then harvested four antibodies that each neutralized many flu strains. Ultimately, the team was able to engineer a gene that expressed a protein made up of nanobodies derived from all four antibodies. "It's very easy to link the domains together into one single molecule," Kolkman says. They spliced the gene into a benign adenovirus-associated virus (AAV) that's used in gene therapy experiments. 
 
 Test tube studies showed the four-in-one antibody prevented infection by 60 different influenza viruses from both the type A and B groups that infect people. "It's been quite hard to find an antibody that neutralizes both A and B," says Ian Wilson, a structural biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, who helped work out how the nanobodies bound to the virus. 
 
 Mice given the synthetic antibody—delivered either by squirting the doctored virus into their noses of the mice or by infusing the protein directly into their circulation—had significantly higher survival rates than untreated rodents when injected with a variety of influenza strains. Wilson, who has published more than 50 papers on influenza antibodies, says he's never seen one with greater breadth and potency. Because AAVs can persist for months, the strategy could offer extended production. "Hopefully it would last the entire flu season in humans," Wilson says. 
 
 Immunologist James Crowe, an influenza antibody specialist and vaccine developer at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, cautions that human immune systems may see the llama-derived proteins as foreign and develop antibodies against them. He also notes that although AAV-based treatments are being tested for life-threatening diseases, giving the virus as a flu preventive would face more intense scrutiny from regulators. "The bar for putting AAV in a healthy individual is going to be very high," Crowe says.
– Kissing a frog may not conjure a prince, but mucus from one colorful Indian variety could one day lead to new ways to fight off the flu, the Verge reports. A study published in the journal Immunity details how scientists tested secretions from an Indian frog known as Hydrophylax bahuvistara and found that one distinct peptide was able to kill certain strains of the influenza virus without simultaneously decimating human red blood cells, as well as protect mice from the H1N1 strain. That molecule, called urumin, is named after the Indian "urumi" sword that looks and acts like a whip and is found in the country's Kerala region, which is also where this particular frog hails from. The scientists involved in the study first collected mucus from the frogs by applying slight electrical shocks to them, which causes them to secrete the substance, Phys.org notes. From there, the researchers were able to pit 32 peptides in the mucus against various flu strains and discovered that four of the peptides were effective flu fighters, a significant statistical find that co-author Joshy Jacob says nearly caused him to be "knocked off my chair." However, three of those molecules also destroyed human red blood cells, leaving just the urumin, which attached itself to a protein in the H1N1 strain called hemagglutinin. The urumin clung to the hemagglutinin as it set to work attacking the virus. The molecule doesn't appear to be a flu panacea—it didn't effectively fight off a current strain called H3N2, for example—but the researchers note its "potential to contribute to first-line anti-viral treatments" in an increasingly drug-resistant environment. (What doesn't work so well to fend off the flu: nasal spray vaccine.)