Word: paoletti
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...transforming modern medicine. Using the sophisticated new cut-and-paste methods of manipulating genes, the researchers were able to transform ordinary smallpox vaccine into vaccines that may be able to prevent the other three diseases. So far the results have been tested in animals only, but Virologist Enzo Paoletti, a senior scientist on the project, is confident that they will work in humans as well. What is more, Paoletti's Albany-based team has already begun work on a version for malaria, the No. 1 infectious health threat in the world. Says Paoletti: "We see no reason...
...What Paoletti and his colleague, Virologist Dennis Panicali, set out to do was to alter the genetic material, or DNA, of cowpox virus by inserting a gene from another virus-herpes, hepatitis B or influenza (see diagram). The goal of these microscopic manipulations is to develop a vaccine that will fool the immune system and make it swing into action. A smallpox preventive that expresses a herpes trait, for instance, will provoke the body into creating antibodies against herpes. The person is then protectively armed against an actual attack of the disease...
...eliciting large quantities of antibodies to hepatitis B, herpes simplex or flu. More impressive still was a study performed by a team at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) showing that chimpanzees immunized with the genetically engineered hepatitis vaccine remained healthy when exposed to the disease. Paoletti got similar results when he exposed immunized mice to herpes virus, which can be fatal to rodents. Says he: "Even with ten to 20 times the lethal dose of herpes simplex, we have 100% survival...