Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...start in just one of the body's billions of cells, triggered by a stray bit of radiation, a trace of toxic chemical, perhaps a virus or a random error in the transcription of the cell's genetic message. It can lie dormant for decades before striking, or it can suddenly attack. Once on the move, it divides to form other abnormal cells, outlaws that violate normal genetic restraints. The body's immune system, normally alert to the presence of alien cells, fails to respond properly; its usually formidable defense units refrain from moving in and destroying the intruders. Unlike...
...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...
...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. They added...
...implications were staggering. Here at last, it seemed, was an agent that would mow down a broad spectrum of viruses, just as penicillin does with bacteria. Most laymen remained unaware of the discovery, but one notable exception was Dan Barry, artist of the Flash Gordon comic strip. That became evident when the first clinical use of interferon took place not in a hospital but in a 1960 Flash Gordon adventure. In that episode, spacemen infected with an extraterrestrial virus aboard a rocket ship far from home are pulled back from death's door by last-minute injections of interferon...
Although there is no direct evidence that a virus causes cancer, there is evidence of herpes virus in cancer patients, specifically in cervical cancer patients, Crumpacker said