Word: vaccinia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...test vaccines on humans. Testing is already being done by Dr. Daniel Zagury of Paris' Pierre and Marie Curie University. Zagury included himself among twelve healthy people who received an experimental vaccine made up of a portion of the AIDS virus inserted into a larger, usually harmless virus called vaccinia. They also received a booster shot of their own cells that had been treated with the vaccinia. The volunteers, he reported, showed signs of antibodies to the AIDS virus. Nonetheless, warned Zagury, "we do not want to give false hopes...
...probably quite small. The vaccine he used, based on the work of NIH Immunologist Bernard Moss, contained only a tiny portion of genetic material from the AIDS virus. This material was inserted into the genes of a larger, harmless virus, which served as a carrier. (The larger virus was vaccinia, once commonly used to prevent smallpox.) When tested in baboons and a chimp for one year, this hybrid stimulated the animals to produce antibodies not only to vaccinia but to the AIDS virus, with no apparent side effects...
...France, however, some AIDS researchers appear more hopeful. Dr. Marc Girard of the Pasteur Institute in Paris announced last week that a vaccine developed there should be ready for human trials sometime next year. The vaccine was developed by adding protein fragments from the AIDS virus to vaccinia, the virus that causes cowpox and is harmless to humans...
...medical researchers hope soon to have a powerful ally in their campaign against viruses: vaccines made from genetically engineered viruses. At the NIH, Dr. Bernard Moss is using recombinant DNA techniques to convert vaccinia, a large virus that causes cowpox, into a one-shot, multidisease vaccine. He plans to insert only the antigen-coding genes of eight to ten kinds of dangerous viruses into the DNA of live but weakened vaccinia viruses. The re- engineered vaccinia would then sport the antigens of the harmful viruses, but not their ability to cause disease. Once inoculated, it would stimulate the immune system...
...starting point for the dramatic research is the oldest vaccine on earth: a smallpox prophylactic made from a live cowpox virus called vaccinia. It was developed two centuries ago by Edward Jenner, a British physician who had observed that milkmaids exposed to cowpox were immune to smallpox. Because vaccinia is an unusually large virus and because it has been familiar to scientists for so long, it was an ideal subject for genetic tinkering...