The 1918 influenza virus caused a pandemic that killed minimally 20 million people and up to 40 or 50 million people in about a year's time. There are no isolates virus available. Influenza viruses weren't known to exist in 1918. So there's really no direct information about the virus. It's still a big medical mystery. So the question was would the Institute possibly have tissue from victims of the 1918 flu and could we use these new powerful molecular technologies to analyze something about the virus to actually get a first direct look at the virus.
