Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...this century the scourges of youth have fallen before the marvel of vaccines. But there has been no similar victory against the last of childhood's common infectious diseases: chickenpox, or as it is known medically, varicella. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the virus-caused illness strikes about 3 million youngsters each year, approximately as many children as there are babies born...
...redness at the injection site and chickenpox-like rashes, but there were no long-lasting or serious adverse effects. The experimental vaccine was developed from a strain of varicella vi rus isolated in 1974 in Japan by Dr. Michiaki Takahashi. Researchers used a live but weakened form of the virus to trigger the body's immunological system into producing antibodies against the disease. The idea, explains Weibel, is "to induce immunity without inducing clinical disease...
...importance of a successful varicella vaccine goes beyond protecting children. Even those who recover uneventfully can be painfully reminded of the disease in adulthood by shingles. The chickenpox virus is a member of the herpes family of viruses that can lie dormant along nerves for decades and be suddenly reactivated, possibly by stress or injury. Says Virologist Stanley Plotkin of the University of Penn sylvania: "Shingles causes severe, insane pain in one in 10,000 Americans a year...
...Peter K Sorger '84, $1500, for his senior thesis entitled "The Self-Assembly of Tarnip Crinkle Virus, an Icosahedral RNA Virus," Professor Stephen C Harrison...
...matter who gets the credit for the AIDS virus, there is no doubt that Gallo laid the groundwork for the discovery with his earlier research into cancer viruses. Says French Immunologist Daniel Zagurey of the University of Paris: "Without Gallo, there wouldn't have been any work on this at Pasteur. Their research is based on his initial discovery." Gallo's quest for the cause of cancer began in childhood. As a boy of 14, in Waterbury, Conn., he watched his younger sister die of leukemia. The memory is still vivid: "She was an emaciated, jaundiced child with...