The Rice method, known as pEpitope (pronounced PEE - epih - tope), was invented more than 10 years ago as a fast, inexpensive way of gauging the effectiveness of proposed
flu vaccine formulations.
The work, directed by researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., found that some study participants who reported receiving
flu vaccines had a strong immune response not only against the seasonal H3N2
flu strain from 2010, when blood samples were collected for analysis, but also against
flu subtypes never included in any
vaccine formulation.