"This is a great step forward for women's health and potentially for men's health as well, considering that this vaccine has the potential capability to treat conditions equally prevalent in both sexes that are caused by the same virus," says Rose. "While some questions still remain about how the vaccine will be administered and concerns have been raised among some groups that use of a vaccine to protect against a sexually transmitted disease will promote promiscuity, the overall reaction to the
approval has been tremendously positive."
The initial research began with an effort to develop a blood test to detect infection by a class of viruses known as human papillomavirus, or HPV, which cause warts as well as cervical cancer. To do so, the researchers needed large amounts of papillomavirus, and while there are plenty of warts in this world, finding people willing to collect and analyze them is quite a different story. So as a starting point the team turned to bovine papillomavirus, or BPV in cows, and Bonnez found himself visiting veterinarians and others with access to cows with warts, seeking samples. The work included visits to veterinarians and meat-packaging plants in upstate New York to collect scrapings from "prized" cow warts, and surveys of people unlikely to be infected with a sexually transmitted disease--priests and nuns who had taken a vow of celibacy.
The work with the cows, the warts, the nuns, and the priests illustrates how basic research can pay off in big and unexpected ways. The University is one of several institutions in whose laboratories work on an HPV vaccine blossomed. Rochester's contribution is recognized with a patent issued by the European Patent Office and by royalty agreements with the companies commercializing the vaccine.
The new vaccine is given as a series of three shots administered a few months apart. Most doctors say the vaccine needs to be given before a person becomes sexually active to do the most good. Rose says work is ongoing to determine if the vaccine can protect against other strains of HPV that may be connected to cancers of the head and neck. And, he adds, research continues at the Medical Center--efforts he describes as "variation on a theme"--to examine other applications for this type of vaccine, including targeting viruses such as HIV.
The Rochester team, based in the Infectious Diseases Division of the Department of Medicine, makes up one of several laboratories whose work helped bring about such a vaccine. In addition to pharmaceutical giant Merck, which received approval from the FDA to market its vaccine product, GlaxoSmithKline also has a product in development. Other institutions that have contributed include the National Institutes of Health, Georgetown University, and the University of Queensland in Australia.
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Team's work paves way for cancer vaccine
esearch by three Medical Center scientists that began 20 years ago has laid the groundwork for a recently approved vaccine that may help save the lives of 230,000 women around the globe, including nearly 4,000 women in the United States. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave full approval on June 8 to Gardasil, a breakthrough vaccine against the virus that causes cervical cancer. The science behind the new drug is based on research by virologists William Bonnez, associate professor of medicine; Richard Reichman, professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology; and Robert Rose, associate professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology.
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