Word: interferon
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine, two separate teams of scientists found that treatment with the drug interferon halted destruction of liver cells in about half the patients with chronic hepatitis. A total of 207 people were studied by the two teams, one led by investigators at the University of Florida, the other at the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases...
Patients received injections of interferon, a natural infection-fighting protein that can be artificially produced by genetically altered bacteria. One drawback: most of the patients who improved suffered a relapse when the injections ended. Doctors think the problem may be resolved by giving interferon for longer periods or in higher doses. Says Dr. Saul Krugman of New York University medical school: "There's no question that it is very promising...
...people who contract hepatitis C never show symptoms. But like Typhoid Mary, they become silent carriers of the disease. About half those infected eventually suffer liver damage. Some 15,000 patients a year develop cirrhosis, and a small number may get cancer. That toll may be cut by interferon. But doctors warn that the mystery of non-A, non-B hepatitis may not be completely resolved. Type C virus could account for most of these cases, but there is evidence that yet another blood-borne virus will extend the hepatitis alphabet still further...
Even if Burroughs refuses to reduce its price further, some patients may begin paying less for AZT treatment. Doctors are discovering that combining the potent antiviral drug with such other formulas as interferon (an immune- system booster) or probenecid (an antigout drug) lowers the dose of AZT necessary for effective treatment. In addition, people who are infected with the AIDS virus but show no symptoms need only about half the full-strength dose to slow the course of the disease...
While the other astronauts continued to check out Discovery's systems, Pinky Nelson began the first of eleven science experiments: growing crystals, which form more precisely in zero gravity, of specialized proteins such as gamma interferon and an enzyme found in the AIDS virus. By studying the crystals, scientists at the Center for Macromolecular Crystallography at the University of Alabama-Birmingham hope to learn more about the structure of the proteins, which may enable researchers to create new disease-fighting drugs. Other experiments scheduled during the mission included the production and study of crystalline organic thin films, evaluation...