With recent Bird Flu outbreaks, it's not hard for scientists like Professor Antonio Lanzavecchia to feel the pressure of finding a vaccine to the deadly disease, or better yet, an outright cure. After all, an outbreak left unchecked could rapidly escalate into a full-blown pandemic in a very short time, and nobody would want that.

Thankfully, a recent breakthrough may mean an actual working antidote that, if administered quickly, could stop Bird Flu right in its tracks - and the good Professor thinks it's more than just mere theory.

A little backgrounder on antibodies. Antibodies are the human body's own way of neutralizing bacteria and diseases, our immune system's soldiers, if you will. When the body successfully recovers from a disease, it will remember that specific disease and will release antibodies tailored to effectively destroy that particular disease if encountered again.

With that in mind, scientists working round the clock in Switzerland, Vietnam, and the United States may have finally found the cure - that is, they've successfully retrieved samples of the specific antibody against Bird Flu, from the survivors of the disease itself. Professor Lanzavecchia puts it like so:

We in a way exploit the immune response of an individual who has been infected and has survived the infection and of course has made antibodies that neutralise these viruses. And using this technique, we can isolate the cells that make these antibodies so that this antibody can now be reproduced in vitro and eventually massively produced to treat other individuals.