Pandemic Hunters - How a century-old tissue sample may hold the key to pandemic preparedness

Call them the pandemic hunters: a team that has scoured the globe for samples from the organs of victims of past pandemic illnesses. You’ve heard the predictions, and it’s written in Natasha Robinson’s thrilling cover story – many of us will see another pandemic in our lifetime. The thought sends a chill down my spine, as I’m sure it does yours. But what if we could build a bridge to the past, allowing medical science to map cells while they were being ravaged by a century-old influenza? And what if this exercise held the key to a successful response next time we are stricken? The effort, backed by the Wesley Research Institute, is no longer hypothetical. The hope of a panacea arising from this work is alive. As scientist Arutha Kulasinghe reveals: “We’ve never pushed the boundary this far.”

In a small, windowless laboratory deep inside a hospital next to the Brisbane River, a group of scientists are huddled around a large monitor, collectively holding their breath. A piece of precious lung tissue, preserved in formaldehyde and paraffin, has been sourced from a European museum where it had been stored for over a century, virtually forgotten. A sliver of the tissue – taken from the lungs of an 18-year-old German soldier who died of Spanish flu – has been prepared on a slide, and slipped under the gaze of an ultra-modern microscope. If this bold experiment comes off, it will be the first time in history that the microbiological secrets of one of the world’s most devastating pandemics have ever been revealed.

Story by The Australian Health Editor Natasha Robinson, The Weekend Australian Magazine 22 June 2024.

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Pictured above (L-R): Professor John Fraser, CCRG Director and Clinical Director Queensland Spatial Biology Centre; Dr Arutha Kulasinghe, A/Prof Kirsty Short; PhD Student Lauren Steele; Meg Donovan, QSBC Research Fellow; and sample of lung tissue from 1918 Spanish flu victim.