In 1970, at about the same time that the HIV epidemic was taking hold in Africa, American molecular biologist David Baltimore and American virologist Howard Temin independently discovered the enzyme reverse transcriptase, which could be used to identify retroviruses. Over the next ten years, many retroviruses were identified in animals. But not until 1980, shortly before the first AIDS cases were recognized in the United States, did American virologist Robert Gallo identify the first human retroviruses, HTLV-I and HTLV-II (HTLV stands for human T cell lymphotropic virus).
16 Other studies demonstrated that these human retroviruses were more closely related to a retrovirus found in African chimpanzees than to each other. This discovery suggests that the human retroviruses may have evolved from retroviruses that originally infected chimpanzees. The chimpanzee retrovirus likely infected people and underwent mutations to form the human retrovirus. In 1999 scientists confirmed that HIV spread from chimpanzees to humans on at least three separate occasions in Central Africa, probably beginning in the 1940s or 1950s.
1) Hepatitis B Vaccine Baruch Samuel Blumberg, born in 1925, American biomedical researcher and winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discovery of a blood protein (antigen) that marks the presence of the hepatitis B virus, a virus that causes liver cancer. Blumberg shared the Nobel Prize with American virologist Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who was honored for identifying a unique infectious agent called a slow virus.
Antibodies (disease-fighting proteins made by the body) form in response to particular antigens (substances on the surface of invading cells). In 1966 Blumberg identified an antigen that causes an antibody response to hepatitis B virus. Blumberg realized that this antibody response could be used to detect genetic differences in blood samples. 16 Blumberg’s discovery led quickly to the development of a test to screen blood, to prevent the hepatitis B virus from being transmitted through transfusion.
Blumberg also worked to develop a hepatitis B vaccine, which became available in 1982. He further demonstrated the role of the virus in liver cancer. 2) SCID Gene Therapy Although gene therapy offers seemingly limitless possibilities, researchers have been thwarted by many technical problems. There has only been one successful clinical trial using gene therapy—in April 2000 French researchers reported the successful use of gene therapy to treat two female infants with severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID), a deadly inherited disease that impairs the immune system.
But even this success was marred when each child later developed a rare leukemia-like illness, thought to be a result of gene therapy. Most clinical trials of gene therapy have not resulted in enough improvement in the patient’s underlying condition to consider it an unqualified success and to justify treating large numbers of people. The extraordinary potential of gene therapy has also raised alarms among critics who warn that the technology could go too far.
They note, for example, that gene therapy could offer wealthy families opportunities for genetic enhancement unavailable to the poor. More troubling still for some critics is gene therapy’s potential to narrow the human gene pool, producing unknown, and possibly harmful, consequences. 20(p180) Clinical immunology concept arose along with the great expansion of immunology in the 1970s. It evolves significantly over time along with its breakthroughs and the remarkable fellows making it possible. While Dr.
Shearer’s article presented case for immunology as a distinct medical subspecialty13, it also recognizes the several factors in the decline in clinical immunology. On the other hand, an apparent strong reaction from Dr. Shearer’s article is Dr. Thomas’ claim that the recognition of clinical immunology as a distinct medical subspecialty lies in evaluation, treatment, and research on allergic disease highlighting the concern of the possible outcome of creating such new subspecialty. Dr. Thomas adds that Dr.
Shearer’s call for new subspecialty recognition necessitates another training program, which he said is “the last thing that academic medicine needs. ”14 Putting up a strong foundation of clinical immunology would certainly improves allergists and immunologists alike but, as Dr. Thomas’ editorial argues, the time spent for an additional training program allotted for this can be a critical factor for its success. This argument is very critical for the future of allergy and immunology assessing one idea for its feasibility.