Thiruvananthapuram: Genetic engineering in the near future will create hens which are resistant to avian flu, eminent American virologist Robert G. Webster, a WHO expert on influenza, said on Wednesday.

Webster, a professor at the Division of Virology, Department of Infectious Diseases, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, US, was delivering a lecture on "The Influenza Virus Enigma" at the Government Medical College here in Thiruvananthapuram.