In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.

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. ||||| The oncoming flu season has claimed its first lives, among them a child in Florida who had not gotten a flu shot. 
  
 This year’s vaccine significantly reduces the odds of getting sick — and you should get one now if you haven’t already — but it’s far from perfect. 
  
 For one thing, its effectiveness fluctuates from year to year. At best, the vaccine may reduce the risk of illness by about 60 percent. Last year, during one of the worst flu epidemics in recent memory, that figure was just 40 percent. 
  
 And if a new strain of the flu were to strike, it might take months to develop an effective vaccine — plenty of time for the virus to sweep the globe, claiming hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of lives. ||||| If the dominant strain in a given season were to suddenly change, these antibodies would be ready for the unwelcome guest. If a flu strain came out of nowhere and threatened a population with no immunity to it — the nightmare scenario of pandemic flu — this supercharged defender would recognize that flu and counter it. If health officials guessed wrong about what flu strain was coming and ordered up a vaccine that would be largely ineffective — a scenario that played out last flu season — this package of antibodies could save the day. |||||
The flu season is upon us, with the usual reminders to get your shot and the usual caveat that the vaccine is just a best guess—scientists' hope that it will match up well against the strains that actually surface. Now, however, a new study suggests that the guessing game could someday end, and it's all thanks to llamas, reports Science. Researchers say their work is a genuine step toward the creation of a universal vaccine, one that would be delivered through a nasal spray and prove far more effective in protecting humans from the ever-changing virus—and potentially from a pandemic, reports the Los Angeles Times. The technique, which the New York Times calls "a sophisticated combination of immunotherapy and gene therapy," worked extremely well in mice. The next step is to move on to other animals and ultimately to clinical trials for humans. So why llamas? They have unusually small antibodies that can nimbly fight invading viruses. The researchers vaccinated the llamas against several flu strains, causing their immune systems to produce antibodies that were then harvested. As the LAT explains, four of those antibodies were "uniquely" tiny and seemed potent against a variety of flu strains. Those four were used to create what the NYT calls a single "mega-antibody." Another novel step followed: They injected into it the mice via a harmless virus used in gene therapy, a way of side-stepping the immune system, which the NYT reports would be unable to produce "this artificial creation." When sprayed into the noses of mice, the new defense worked—the virus penetrated cells in the nasal cavity, and they started to pump out the mega-antibody. (One stat may help explain last year's brutal flu season.)