Virus Discovery May Help Combat Colds

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31586, 25 January 1968, Page 13

Virus Discovery May Help Combat Colds

(N.t.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, Jan. 24.

A possible new weapon for combating all virus-borne diseases, including the common cold, has been discovered at the Medical Research Council’s meta b o 1 coreaction research unit.

If early hopes are fulfilled, ft could become as great a landmark in medicine as did the discovery of penicillin. The director of the unit, Professor Ernst Chain, was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the production of penicillin. Talking of the new discov-i ery. Professor Chain said to-1 day: “It could have enormous: medical possibilities. We; don’t know yet, but when I first started work on peni-| cillin we didn’t know its possibilities, either.” The discovery is that al

ivirus found on a fungus can stimulate what is believed to be an animal’s resistance to animal viruses. Antibiotics generally do not cope with viruses, which are much smaller than ordinary bacteria. Azout 10 years ago, Dr Alick Isaacs, of the National Institute for Medical Research. identified a substance called interferon, produced by the body and believed to have :the capacity to counteract 'viruses. I Professor Chain said today that their work had been on a substance called statalon, (discovered by a South Ameri!can doctor, Dr Kleinschmidt, j which was said to promote the (production of interferon. They decided to study it in [detail, but found that the more they purified the substance the less active it became. Then Dr Kleinschmidt suggested that he had found particles like virus particles in statalon, which he thought had come from outside infection.

The British workers then looked at their own pure preparation, and found phosphoric compounds which indicated the presence of nucleic acids. “We looked at the mould and found it was stiff with viruses' of the fungus,” Professor Chain said. Looked at through the electron - microscope, the mould was completely covered with hexagon-shaped virus particles. It was this virus which it was found had the effect of increasing interferon. “It is strange that a plant virus should have this effect in animals, that it should stimulate interferon to act against animal virus,” Professor Chain said. “This is an entirely new field—all sorts of things can come from it. “I personally have no doubt that interferon does work,” Professor Chain said. If future work bore out hopes that this would produce a new medical weapon, it would be used as a vaccine to produce immunity against virus-borne diseases. So far no adverse effects from the virus had been found. Much more work, however, remained to be done.