Word: interferon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...bold proposal. Dr. Jordan Gutterman of Houston's M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute had applied to the American Cancer Society for a grant of more than a million dollars to buy interferon, a scarce and expensive substance that has shown promise in cancer research. To buttress his request, Gutterman reported that of ten advanced breast cancer patients he had treated with interferon, four had shown shrinkage of their widespread tumors. Those results, following encouraging news about interferon in animal and human tests by other researchers, seemed too compelling to ignore. Exceeding even Gutterman's expectations, the A.C.S. set aside...
...Interferon is a large hormone-like protein produced by the cells of all vertebrate animals. It was discovered in 1957 in Britain by Virologists Alick Isaacs and Jean Lindenmann during their investigation of a curious phenomenon: people are almost never infected by more than one virus at a time. Seeking an explanation, the researchers infected cells from chick embryos with influenza virus. What they found was a substance that protected the chick cells from both the flu and other viruses. Because it interfered with the infection process, it was dubbed interferon...