Home » Health » The Nobel Prize for Medicine to discover the hepatitis C virus – Biotech

The Nobel Prize for Medicine to discover the hepatitis C virus – Biotech

The Nobel Prize for Medicine 2020 was awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton e Charles M. Rice for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. They were the first to identify a virus responsible for a disease that was incurable until recently, contributing so to save many lives. Their discovery, notes the Nobel Foundation, “revealed the cause of many cases of hepatitis whose origin had not yet been discovered, paving the way for the possibility of making a diagnosis through blood tests and developing drugs that have saved millions of lives “.

Prior to research by Alter, Rice and Houghton, the cause of most hepatitis was unknown. Thanks to the work of the three Nobel laureates today we knowhepatitis C is the leading cause of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer and the virus responsible for the disease was unknown. Previously, the causes of hepatitis A had been identified, mainly related to transmission linked to the ingestion of contaminated water or foodi, and hepatitis B, which is transmitted through the blood and whose virus had been discovered in the 1960s by Baruch Blumberg, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1976. However, the causes of many other apparently unexplained cases of hepatitis remained to be identified.

Alter was the first to study these mysterious forms of hepatitis and, while working at the National Institutes of Health (Nih), he realized that the blood of patients affected by the strange disease was contagious to chimpanzees and, further research revealed that the the infectious agent had the characteristics of a virus. Thus it became clear that we were faced with a new form of hepatitis and underlining its nature, still unclear, it was decided to call it ‘not A-not B’. The challenge had then become to be able to identify the virus, but despite the efforts of ten years of research, every attempt had been in vain.

The genetic analyzes conducted by Houghton in the laboratories of the pharmaceutical company Chiron provided the first genetic identikit of the virus, demonstrating its belonging to the Falvivirus family: finally it was possible to give it a more defined name and it was called ‘hepatitis C virus’.

At that point it remained to be seen whether that C virus triggered hepatitis alone and the genetic engineering techniques used by Rice at Washington University in St. Louis showed that it was enough to inject the genetic material of the virus, namely its Rna, into animals. to cause disease.

At that point all the pieces of the puzzle were in place and the discovery had paved the way for the diagnosis of the disease, by means of blood tests, and the possibility of developing treatments, saving millions of lives.

Who are the three winners

Alter, 85, was born in 1935 in New York and graduated from the University of Rochester, where he continued to work for a while and then moved to Seattle. From 1961 he worked for the National Institutes of Health (Nih), except for a brief period in which he worked at Georgetown University.

Rice (65) was born in 1952 in Sacramento and graduated from the 1981 California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Since 1986 he has worked in the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis. Since 2001 he has been teaching at Rockefeller University in New York, where until 2018 he directed the Hepatitis C Research Center.

British Houghton graduated in 1977 from King’s College London and later worked for GD Searle & Company and Chiron. Since 2010 taught at the University of Alberta

The Nobel week started today with the announcement of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine 2020. The next scientific appointments are scheduled for October 6 with the announcement of the Nobel for Physics and Wednesday 7 with the Nobel for Chemistry.

As in the past, the announcements are broadcast online by the Nobel Foundation, in connection with the Stockholm Karoliska Institute for Medicine and the headquarters of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Few attendances in the classrooms due to the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic for the first time in its history, even the awards ceremony scheduled at the beginning of December will be virtual

– .

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.