Monkeys and viral decoys could be key to creating an effective avian-flu vaccine before a worldwide pandemic can strike.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research a $3.6 million grant to conduct animal studies on a vaccine the center designed to protect against the most common and deadliest strain of avian flu.

Recent avian-flu outbreaks in Africa, Asia and Europe, with expectations the H5N1 strain soon could arrive in North America, have prompted health officials to warn of a potential pandemic. Worldwide, more than 200 cases of avian flu in humans have been documented.

Ted Ross, principal investigator in the vaccine development project and assistant professor at Pitt, said the grant will allow the team to test the vaccine on monkeys in the center's 20,000-square-foot Regional Biocontainment Laboratory. It marks the first time monkeys will be used in vaccine development.

If the vaccine proves effective in the monkeys, it could be ready for human trials within three years.

"Our goal is to move it into human studies," Dr. Ross said. "What's nice about our work, in looking at H5N1, there are numerous subtypes it could cause. We could quickly respond and quickly make vaccines."

Pitt is using a relatively new approach in developing its avian-flu vaccine. Typically vaccines are produced with live viruses, but the center is using a virus-like particle that the immune system still perceives to be the real virus. The viral decoy is safer because it does not include its genome or "bad parts of the virus," Dr. Ross said. That speeds up the manufacturing process and reduces costs.

Gardasil, the vaccine against viruses that cause cervical cancer, was the first to use virus-like particles to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Given the evolving nature of H5N1, the new vaccine also is being engineered to encode genes for many influenza viral proteins, which will enhance protection against possible new strains of avian flu.

"If there's a different strain, we quickly can make a vaccine," Dr. Ross said.