This is CBS, I Am The World. I'm John Bachelors. COVID-19 flew. Here we are dealing with

boosters for COVID-19 and the flu season. I learned that there is the pursuit, however,

of something that is universal so that one shot, and you know them all, Dr. Henry Miller joins me

now writing about the Holy Grail that's from Henry's title of the vaccine. Henry helps me understand

these things. He's a physician. It's Dr. Henry Miller physician. He is a molecular biologist.

He is the Glenn Swagger, Distinguished Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health,

and he's the co-discoverer of the RNA-dependent RNA polymaris once upon a time. Henry,

we begin with me learning from you how to say that. What is it? Good evening to you.

What the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase? It's the enzyme in the flu virus that enables it to

replicate itself, to reproduce the RNA, which is its genetic material. That was a long time ago, John.

That was when I was a graduate student, but it was a milestone at the time.

We now go to the idea of a universal vaccine. We need to have some special language here.

What is antigenic drift? What is antigenic shift? And how do they illustrate the troubles we've had

with COVID-19? Well, one of the tricky things about flu or influenza virus is that it mutates a lot.

That's why we need yearly shots, whereas for things like polio vaccine and shingles vaccine

and HPV vaccine, once you're fully immunized, you're immunized forever, or at least for a very,

very long time, but flu mutates. There are two ways that it evolves or mutates

and becomes more virulent, or at least more transmissible. The first way is called

antigenic drift, which entails just individual mutations in the RNA, the various segments of RNA,

that constitute the genetic material of the virus. Usually, those are relatively minor changes.

Most often, neutral sometimes making them slightly more virulent, or slightly more able to

escape from previous vaccinations. But the real hazard is when you get antigenic shift,

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