Word: hovanessian
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Dates: during 1993-1993
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...immune system by latching on to a protein "receptor," named CD4, found on the cells' surface. When an invader attacks the body, the CD4 molecule normally helps mobilize the immune system's defenses. In this case, though, HIV fools the CD4 receptor into allowing viral particles into the cell. Hovanessian reported last week that his team had found a second receptor, called CD26, that helps the virus enter the cell after it has attached itself to CD4. If Hovanessian is correct, scientists might be able to devise drug treatments that block access to the CD26 receptor -- and thus prevent infection...
...researchers attending the conference, including Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, did not seem at all convinced that a cure was any closer. Gallo, among others, has failed in efforts to design an effective treatment based on the original discovery of the CD4 receptor. After Hovanessian's talk, Gallo tried to avoid reporters but was finally cornered. "Why is the press so excited about this?" he demanded. "I'm flabbergasted. I thought it was an interesting presentation, but I can't say more than that." Gallo's lack of enthusiasm was + hardly surprising: he's still...
Sitting atop a desk in a corridor of the conference hall, Hovanessian was incensed at the skepticism he faced. "It's very shabby of these American colleagues who questioned the results," he said. "While I was talking, Gallo was sitting in the front row laughing all the time." Alternating between French and English, Hovanessian rejected the idea that his announcement was premature. "You don't think I would just come up with something like this, throw it out there and say, voila, take it?" he asked. "We have had these results in hand since April and have repeated the whole...
...skeptics were Americans, however. "I don't see the beginning of a proof," fumed Jacques Liebowitch of the Raymond Poincare Hospital near Paris. "The press has already whipped this up into a major breakthrough, and now we find that there is nothing to it." Even Hovanessian's own colleagues at Pasteur seemed somewhat reserved. "It's a very interesting paper," said Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who helped Montagnier isolate the AIDS virus. "The danger is that whenever there is something interesting in this field, it gets blown out of proportion. There are other experiments to do, and I'm sure Hovanessian...
...Hovanessian and his team have submitted their research to the journal Science, where experts will review it before publication. Pasteur's head of vaccine research, Marc Girard, nicely described the promising but precarious place in which his colleague's research stands: "If these results are reproduced in the next weeks or months by one or two other labs in the U.S. and elsewhere, then it's fantastic, because that would mean Hovanessian has really discovered something new. But we have to get to that stage before we can get excited...