A Springfield researcher’s development of a vaccine to protect against genital herpes, one of the world’s most common sexually transmitted diseases, has received a skeptical reception from the international scientific community so far, but the researcher is neither surprised nor discouraged.
“Science moves kind of like a glacier down a mountain,” said William Halford, associate professor of medical microbiology, immunology and cell biology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. “As far as scientists are concerned, there’s nothing unusual about the rate at which this work has progressed.”
Background
Halford, 43, published the results of his latest discoveries in the August 2010 and March 2011 issues of the scientific journal PLoS ONE. In experiments with mice, he demonstrated almost total protection against herpes with a vaccine involving a live but weakened form of the herpes virus.
Even though other vaccines using live viruses have been popular and effective in protecting against diseases such as chicken pox, polio, measles, mumps and rubella, Halford faces an ideological battle with current scientific philosophy and regulatory agencies before his vaccine can be tested in humans.
That’s because Halford said genetic-engineering techniques available since the 1970s have led to a pervasive view that creating new vaccines with live viruses would be too risky for patients compared with other vaccine-development options.
In Halford’s March paper, he pointed out the recent failure in clinical trials of a genital-herpes vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline using pieces of protein from a virus — trials that cost the federal government $27.6 million between 2003 and 2009.
“If what you’re saying is that this approach, at the end of the day, really isn’t that good, the people who get money out of that approach for their research are usually not thrilled with you,” he said. “When you’re going against the grain, there’s no clear, well-defined path of how to go against the grain.”
Halford said it will take time to change the minds of scientists who are skeptical of his approach. That skepticism, he said, will influence whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration eventually allows clinical trials in humans with a weakened live virus.
Halford said his research in mice shows results 100 times better than the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine and much safer than even the polio or chicken pox or MMR vaccines, all of which can be encouraging for non-scientists. But he cautioned that clinical trials for humans are at least 10 years away.
About 1 billion people are carriers of genital herpes worldwide, and 20 million people are infected every year, which means young people have a one in 10 chance of acquiring incurable herpes before they marry.
What’s next
Halford said he is conducting more research at SIU to probe why his vaccine works so well. That data, over time, could lead to acceptance by influential scientists, he said.
“In science, you never change a prevailing belief system with one or two papers,” he said. “It just doesn’t work that way. What you do is you keep publishing on it. As far as scientists are concerned, there’s nothing unusual about the rate with which this work has progressed.”
Dr. Anna Wald, a herpes-vaccine researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle who is not associated with Halford, said it is “great” that Halford is working toward an effective vaccine. But she said good results in mouse research don’t necessarily transfer to clinical trials in humans.
Wald, who helped conduct research connected with the failed GlaxoSmithKline vaccine, also said there are important differences between herpes and viruses that cause diseases for which there are live-virus vaccines.
And she said safety-related concerns — that a weakened virus in a new vaccine could cause debilitating infections in patients — are real.
“Once you give someone a live-virus vaccine, you can’t take it back,” she said.
She didn’t deny, however, that Halford may be onto something with his research.
“He might be right, but I think a lot more work needs to be done before this really turns out to be quite as good as it seems,” Wald said.
Dean Olsen can be reached at 788-1543.
