The Archive includes 181 reassortants or mutants of influenza viruses prevalent during the period 1933-2000. These reassortants were produced or the mutants were discovered in the laboratory of E.D. Kilbourne during the past 43 years. A number of the reassortants were designed as high yield, commercially-used vaccine viruses under FDA/CBER sponsorship, and others were produced under a remarkable arrangement of shared funding by the major American influenza vaccine manufacturers. However, the majority of the viruses have been designed (and employed) as research reagents.

Special Notice

The entire contents of this archive with detailed descriptions of each virus and of antisera to many of them are once again accessible on the Web at http://www.flu-archive.org after many months of inaccessibility.

Initially held at NIAID, the Archive was taken over briefly by ATCC, which, in turn, transferred its resources to a new organization of NIAID known as the Biodefense and Emerging Infections Research Resources Repository (BEIResources). This latter organization is prepared to distribute samples of the Archive viruses.

BEIR may be contacted as follows:
Phone – 800-359-7370
Fax – 703-365-2898
Web address – http://www.beiresources.org/Home.cfm

If samples are not immediately available, please contact Dr. Edwin D. Kilbourne (ekilbourne@snet.net) or Dr. Doris Bucher (doris_bucher@nymc.edu) at New York Medical College, which is holding duplicate samples in the original depository.