Bert Rima and Paul Duprex believe in the power of vaccines. As Paul says, ‘Few products have done more to alleviate disease.’
He points to chickenpox and shingles, severe diarrhoea, cervical cancer, meningitis – a range of diseases which affect young and old, rich and poor, in both the developed and developing world. ‘What unites these various conditions is that in the last couple of years several major pharmaceutical companies have released new vaccines to fight these diseases. Vaccines deliver. Moreover, they provide a steady source of income for the pharmaceutical companies since other manufacturers who rely on selling low cost generic drugs find them harder to replicate.’
Dr Duprex’s expertise is in bioimaging and he has had a longstanding interest in how viruses infect us and spread. He and Professor Rima have formed a unique research partnership and are currently working on a £1m grant project, funded by the Medical Research Council, on Animal Models of Disease.
Bert says, ‘We have a set of compatible skills – more classical virology from my side and the molecular aspect of the virus from Paul.’
Paul puts it, ‘Bert has this huge overall understanding of viruses as agents of disease. I brought the tools and the ability to genetically engineer them.’
The aim of the project is to understand how respiratory viruses cause disease. Bert says, ‘Our USP is the ability to generate viruses that we can track easily.’
To do this, with an animal model, they are using a genetically modified virus which glows bright green when it infects a cell. It allows them to light up a disease in a way that was never possible before.
Paul explains, ‘As well as seeing these illuminated manifestations of disease with the eye,"Our USP is the ability to generate viruses that we track easily." high-powered microscopes can be used to identify individually infected cells with supreme levels of sensitivity. And since this model has been so beneficial in measles research, we plan to use it to study how other respiratory viruses establish infections.’
Bert is one of the world’s most esteemed virologists. He is an authority on measles and mumps and he was called on for his expert advice by the US during the controversy over the MMR vaccine.
Paul says, ‘For this project, we got the best viruses, the best cells and the best animal models. We got viruses which are real, which cause real disease in real people. We grow them in real cells. If it’s a respiratory virus we grow it in a respiratory cell. Then you look for the best animal model which copies the disease and that’s as near to the real context as you can possibly get. That’s what makes this research unique. The funding agencies looked at this and saw classical virology, molecular virology and animal models all wrapped up.’
He adds, ‘It’s only by understanding the real disease that you can say intelligently – this is the way to develop the vaccine.’
Of the measles virus, Bert says views have changed. ‘It was always considered a respiratory virus but now we look on it more as a virus like HIV because it focuses very strongly on the immune system.
‘At the end of the day, although the measles virus is no longer a real killer, like HIV is, we’ll have to continue vaccinating against it. There are a number of other viruses in that family that are like canine distemper, like some of the viruses that killed seals in the past, that are potentially more dangerous for us.
‘Measles has come into the human population and established a sort of relationship with us. But it’s always possible that some of the other viruses from that group will jump into the human population and cause a major pandemic. We see plenty of opportunities for us to exploit some of our molecular trickery in the development of other vaccines.’
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