Word: lindenmann
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...substance that has caused all this excitement was discovered in 1957 by Virologists Alick Isaacs and Jean Lindenmann. Isaacs, who died of a nonmalignant brain tumor at age 45 in 1967, was investigating influenza viruses at London's National Institute for Medical Research. There he met Lindenmann, who had arrived from Switzerland in July 1956. Lindenmann, now head of experimental microbiology at the University of Zurich, stayed in London only a year. But it was time well spent. Over a cup of tea that August, the two scientists discovered a mutual fascination with a biological phenomenon known as viral interference...
...Isaacs and Lindenmann had the answer by early the next year, a remarkably quick solution to a major scientific puzzle. In a series of experiments, they took pieces of the thin membranes that line the inside of chicken eggshells, grew them in a nutrient solution, and exposed them to influenza viruses. When they added other viruses to the culture, they found that the cells resisted further infection. True to form, the first set of viruses seemed to be thwarting the attack of the second. The researchers next removed all traces of viruses and chicken cells, leaving only the culture brew...
...Lindenmann decided to call the mysterious stuff interferon, a hybrid of "interference" and the suffix "on," which was in vogue among biologists, who were using such names as cistron, recon and muton to describe new genetic concepts. The initial discovery was made in November and duly recorded in Isaacs' lab notebook under the entry: "In search of an interferon." Lindenmann took it all in stride. Said he: "I thought it quite natural that when you did research you discovered things...
...meaning that it works only in the type of animal that produces it. Monkey interferon works only in monkeys, mouse in mice and human in humans. Thus, unlike the insulin extracted from cattle and pig glands and used by humans, IF harvested from animals does not work in people. Lindenmann continued working with IF for about three years, but then left it, believing its puzzles could best be worked out by biochemists. "I spared myself years of frustration," he says. Most of his colleagues, aware of the difficulties of interferon studies, considered his decision totally rational. Said one distinguished virologist...
...concept that IF might also be effective against cancer may have occurred spontaneously to several researchers after the work of Isaacs and Lindenmann was confirmed. After all, it had already been shown that some animal cancers were caused by the polyoma virus. Though no human cancer virus has yet been definitely identified, some tumors seem to be linked to viral infections. In recent years, for example, it has been shown that women with the genital disease caused by the herpes type II virus are more likely to develop cervical cancer than those who are free of that virus...