A few flu seasons ago, Dr. Christine Hay's work followed her home when her young daughter got sick.
 
"And then the rest of us started getting sick one after another, all again with the flu, all of us having been vaccinated," says Hay.
 
Incredibly, the family's flu experience repeated itself the following year, when the shot didn't match the circulating strains, victims of the educated guessing that goes into the annual vaccine.
 
"It's just like, you know, weather prediction, where you get better at that every year, but you know, it's still not possible to always predict things exactly right," says Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. John Treanor.
 
Traditionally, making flu vaccine requires millions of fertilized eggs. But now a new vaccine under study bypasses the birds.
 
"They use recombinant DNA techniques. And they make DNA cause the viral protein to be synthesized in a cell line, and then they purify that viral protein from the cell line."
 
FluBlok, as the vaccine is called, can be made faster than egg-based vaccines. That time savings could improve the flu shot recipe.
 
"With a process that would be shorter, you can wait a little bit longer to make your decision. That's an advantage," says Treanor.
 
The cell-culture system is also efficient, and 'ups' the amount of flu protein in the shot.
 
"And there's some evidence that giving a higher dose stimulates a more vigorous immune response," says Treanor.
 
For now, this doctor has her own strategy to battle the flu this year.
 
"We might do both the shots and the nasal vaccine, we'll see. There's no data it's any better, but we're going to try everything we can," says Treanor.
 
The way FluBlok is produced, it could offer an important improvement in flu vaccine production.