Word: cowpox
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...much safer approach to immunology was made in 1796, when Edward Jenner decided it was more than coincidence that milkmaids stricken with a mild form of the cattle disease called cowpox were rarely victims of smallpox. He inoculated James Phipps, 8, with cowpox, then exposed him to smallpox six weeks later. The boy never came down with the disease, confirming that the immunization had worked. More than a century and a half passed before scientists knew the reason: the antigens on the cowpox virus are so similar to those on the smallpox virus that they can prime the immune system...
...AIDS researchers appear more hopeful. Dr. Marc Girard of the Pasteur Institute in Paris announced last week that a vaccine developed there should be ready for human trials sometime next year. The vaccine was developed by adding protein fragments from the AIDS virus to vaccinia, the virus that causes cowpox and is harmless to humans...
Although the agents of all these infections remained a mystery, the first safe vaccine against a viral disease was developed in the 18th century by Edward Jenner, a doctor in rural England. Jenner noticed that farmhands who contracted cowpox, a mild disease related to smallpox, did not develop the more deadly disease. In 1798 he inoculated a boy with material from a milkmaid's cowpox sore, then demonstrated that the lad had developed immunity to smallpox...
...medical researchers hope soon to have a powerful ally in their campaign against viruses: vaccines made from genetically engineered viruses. At the NIH, Dr. Bernard Moss is using recombinant DNA techniques to convert vaccinia, a large virus that causes cowpox, into a one-shot, multidisease vaccine. He plans to insert only the antigen-coding genes of eight to ten kinds of dangerous viruses into the DNA of live but weakened vaccinia viruses. The re- engineered vaccinia would then sport the antigens of the harmful viruses, but not their ability to cause disease. Once inoculated, it would stimulate the immune system...
Essex studies the proteins which make up the virus and tries to determine which "structural parts of the virus are biologically significant." From his studies of HTLV-III relatives, "We hope to find a weakened form of the virus. The analogy is to smallpox and cowpox. Cowpox is harmless, but [exposure to it] is protective against smallpox," Essex says...