werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (05/15/85)
<><><><> ** More news from the frontiers of research ** You may recall that last month in net.med/singles, I reported that scientists at Genentech had succeeded in purifying a component of the Herpes Simplex Virus Type I (Oral Herpes) and used it to successfully vaccinate Guinea Pigs against both Type I and Type II (Genital) Herpes. That was encouraging, but the vaccine itself as administered to the guinea pigs, is totally unsuitable for human use. In this week's issue of Science, scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the National Institute of Oral Medicine of the National Institutes of Health, (Incidentally, the administration is trying to cut the NIH's budget. Write your congressman - as you can see, there doing useful stuff there.) reported the cloning of the same Herpes membrane protein (gpD) into the Vaccinia virus. Most of the people on the net are familiar with Vaccinia virus even though they don't know it by name -- it's the virus that was used to vaccinate (vaccinate comes from Vaccinia) against smallpox. So, that smallpox scar is from Vaccinia. Anyway, the recombinant Vaccinia, which behaved normally even though it resembled Herpes of the outside was injected into mice just as it normally would be for an inoculation. Such animals were protected against initial Herpes infection, and (and this didn't happen with the purified protein vaccine) also protected for the most part against latency -- which causes recurrences of the sores. Now, little is known about the human route of infection and latency, so the latter conclusion will have to await human clinical trials of the vaccine -- which can be done with this arrangement. The relative safety of vaccinia has been proven since the early 1800s, when Jenner started to inoculate against Smallpox. The article did not mention if and when human trials would be started. However, even if they were started immediately, it would still be several years before routine availability. (Who knows - now that nobody gets smallpox vaccines anymore, the Vaccinia scar might become a Sex symbol in the next generation.) -- Craig Werner !philabs!aecom!werner What do you expect? Watermelons are out of season!