

Radical Vaccine Design Effective Against Herpes Viruses - alexcasalboni
https://www.hhmi.org/news/radical-vaccine-design-effective-against-herpes-viruses

======
dzdt
See [http://liveherpesvaccine.com/category/herpes-
immunology/](http://liveherpesvaccine.com/category/herpes-immunology/) for a
long-running detailed blog by a different scientist who has been working on
similar ideas for years. He has shown that a mutated HSV virus which is not
capable of causing clinical disease (but which does cause a lifelong infection
by the "harmless" version) protects against the dangerous version. This new
research seems to be in the same vein:

> When introduced to a mouse, HSV-2 was able to use the HSV-1 gD to enter the
> mouse’s cells. Once inside, HSV-2 replicated abundantly, but because it
> could not produce gD, future progeny were unable to infect new cells.
> According to Herold, infected cells then became “little factories for making
> viral proteins” that spurred the immune system to produce antibodies to
> HSV-2.

That sounds like some cells are infected with the mutated virus and this
remains as a lifelong infection. So far there seems little hope that the FDA
would approve such an approach, based on Halford's experience. (See linked
blog.)

~~~
ianlevesque
I thought this was how the modern measles vaccine also functions though?

~~~
dzdt
You made me curious, so I did some reading. As far as I understand, the
measles does use a live attenuated virus, but the resulting infection is not
(normally) persistent. However, the varicella vaccine (chickenpox) DOES use a
live attenuated virus that causes persistent infection.

------
perlgeek
This may be a bit off-topic, but it's always hard for me to judge the
trustworthiness and impact of such publications.

Here at least was link to the journal publication
([http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e06054](http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e06054)),
and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELife](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELife)
says about the journal that it's a fairly recent (but afaict, well-backed)
journal with impact factor 8.5.

I know that in physics, an impact factor of 8.5 is really good, and
[http://impactfactor.weebly.com/medicine.html](http://impactfactor.weebly.com/medicine.html)
lists only a few journals with a higher impact.

So my first conclusion would be "not a scam".

What else could I do to quickly get a feeling for how profound and trustworthy
this is, in a field that I know next to nothing about?

~~~
yungchin
Elife is backed by the largest non-profit funding medical research in the
United Kingdom (the Wellcome Trust). Its editor won a Nobel Prize recently. I
know these are somewhat shallow proxies for trustworthiness, but good enough
for me ;)

(As for the more general question - how do you decide this in general, in a
field you're new to - I don't know. Probably asking in a thread on HN is a
very good strategy actually :))

------
iterationx
According to the article: " Also, babies born to mothers with active genital
herpes have a more than 80 percent mortality rate"

How can this be if 1/6 people has herpes in the US ? Seems like you would hear
about a lot more infant deaths.

~~~
dguaraglia
The amount of FUD being spread about HPV is stunning. Maybe it's my tinfoil
hat, but I can only associate the increased news coverage on the fact that:

1) A pharmaceutical corporation developed a vaccine for it 2) TV broadcasting
is heavily funded by pharmaceutical corporations 3) Profit

It's brilliant. You develop a vaccine for a virus most of the population will
be exposed to at some point in their lives (HPV, flu, you name it.) Despite
the fact that the vast majority will survive the infection without any issues,
you convince them that they'll _die_ if they don't get vaccinated. Better yet:
you convince them _their kids_ will die.

Rinse, repeat.

~~~
toufka
Just to clarify some science. The link between HPV and cancer is direct,
strong and without dispute. It's one of the rare cases where we can pinpoint
_exactly_ how a disease/cancer works.

HPV wants its own DNA to be replicated properly - but a particular protein
(P53) in humans impairs the virus' ability to replicate. So the virus has
evolved the ability to shut down that human protein. The problem is that P53
also serves another role in humans other than helping to stop viruses - it is
a DNA repair protein. So the virus, by shutting down the ability of the cell's
ability to repair its own DNA it becomes much more susceptible to DNA-damaging
events like smoking, UV light and old age generally.

There are a handful of proteins responsible for keeping your cells from
becoming cancerous. P53 is the name of one of these control proteins. HPV has
evolved to actively destroy P53. So once a person is infected with HPV, their
own P53 proteins are compromised and can no longer repair their DNA as
efficiently as someone who is not infected with HPV.

The HPV vaccine is one of the very clearest lines of causality from atomic
resolution biology through public policy. It's an amazing feat of society.

------
nsxwolf
So this wouldn't suppress existing infections? That seemed to be implied by
other HSV vaccine approaches.

~~~
arto
> The robust response generated by the vaccine, as well as its novel
> mechanism, has the researchers undertaking additional experiments in mice to
> determine whether it can be used to treat individuals already infected by
> HSV-1 and HSV-2.

------
fsargent
Does this work if you already have HSV-1 (but not HSV-2)? When can I get it?

Can I make it at home?

