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Influenza viruses cause annual epidemics and occasional pandemics that have claimed the lives of millions. The emergence of new strains will continue to pose challenges to public health and

the scientific communities. A prime example is the recent emergence of swine-origin H1N1 viruses that have transmitted to and spread among humans, resulting in outbreaks internationally.

Efforts to control these outbreaks and real-time monitoring of the evolution of this virus should provide us with invaluable information to direct infectious disease control programmes and

to improve understanding of the factors that determine viral pathogenicity and/or transmissibility.

We apologize to our colleagues whose critical contributions to influenza virus research could not be cited owing to the number of references permitted. We thank K. Wells for editing the

manuscript. We also thank M. Ozawa and others in our laboratories who contributed to the data cited in this review. Our original research was supported by National Institute of Allergy and

Infectious Diseases Public Health Service research grants; by the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis (CRIP) funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

(Contract HHSN266200700010C), Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research, by a contract research fund for the Program of Founding Research Centers for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious

Diseases from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, by grants-in-aid from the Ministry of Health and by ERATO (Japan Science and Technology Agency). G.N. is

named as co-inventor on several patents about influenza virus reverse genetics and/or the development of influenza virus vaccines or antivirals. Y.K. is named as inventor/co-inventor on

several patents about influenza virus reverse genetics and/or the development of influenza virus vaccines or antivirals. Figures 1 and 2 were modified from Orthomyxoviruses: influenza, in

Topley and Wilson's Microbiology and Microbial Infections: Virology (Hodder Arnold, 2005); Fig. 3 was modified from Orthomyxoviruses, in Fields Virology (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins,

2007).

Author Contributions G.N. wrote the manuscript. T.N. provided the electron microscopic picture. Y.K. also wrote the manuscript.

[Competing Interests: Y.K. has received speaker’s honoraria from Chugai Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Sankyo, Toyama Chemical, Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline; grant support from Chugai

Pharmaceuticals, Daiichi Sankyo Pharmaceutical and Toyama Chemical; consulting fee from Theraclone Sciences and Fort Dodge Animal Health; and is a founder of FluGen. G.N. has received

consulting fee from Theraclone Sciences and is a founder of FluGen.]

The authors declare competing financial interests: details accompany the full-text HTML version of the paper at www.nature.com/nature.

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With the swine-origin H1N1 influenza outbreak now officially a global pandemic, Gabriele Neumann, Takeshi Noda and Yoshihiro Kawaoka take stock of our knowledge of the emergence of the H1N1

virus, and compare its antigenic and pathologic properties with those of previously circulating influenza strains. They conclude that the world was ill-prepared to cope with the pandemic. On

the prospects for better preparedness in future, they say that although much has been learned, we need to know more about interspecies transmission, reassortment and human-to-human

transmission. A Nature paper published online last week, underlines the importance of surveillance of flu viruses in swine as a means of detecting strains with pandemic potential.