Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...often that companies cheer the news that a competitor has beaten them to market with a hot new product. But something like that happened last week when the Food and Drug Administration announced that it had approved commercial production of a new vaccine against hepatitis B, a virus that causes an incurable and sometimes fatal liver disease and strikes an estimated 200,000 new victims every year in the U.S. Developed by Merck, the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant, in partnership with Chiron, a small (1985 sales: $6 million) biotech firm in Emeryville, Calif., the product is the first genetically...
Recombivax HB is made by inserting a gene from the hepatitis B virus into yeast. The yeast cells then multiply rapidly and manufacture large amounts of a protein from the virus. This protein forms the basis of the new vaccine, which triggers an immune reaction when injected into humans...
...split among two or three recipients, as many as 360 people could receive AIDS-infected blood each year, though how many will develop the disease is unknown. The main reason for the slipups, explains Chalmers, is that the existing blood- screening test detects antibodies to the AIDS virus rather than the virus itself. Since someone infected with the AIDS virus may take several weeks to develop antibodies, he says, "there is a dangerous window of time" when the test will fail to detect infection...
...test, the panel urged further steps to discourage the donation of blood by those at risk for AIDS. The group also recommended that blood banks notify donors whose blood tests yield ambiguous results. Says Chalmers: "They should be told that they probably don't have the AIDS virus, but to be safe, they'd better not donate blood." At present, only those whose AIDS test is clearly positive are notified. Most important, the panel called for continued efforts to develop more precise blood-screening tests. Such tests, says NIH Administrator Luiz Barbosa, are already in the pipeline, but they must...
Laurence Lasky, a scientist at Genentech, Inc. of South San Francisco, announced that the firm has used genetic engineering to produce antibodies that neutralize the AIDS virus in a test tube. Lasky did not venture to guess if these antibodies can be formed in a human body, and the necessary tests could take months or years. To complicate matters, Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute reported that samples of virus isolated from the brains of AIDS victims inexplicably differ from the form of virus that commonly attacks the T cells of the immune system...