New medicine Prize 2020 3 scientists share the prize for discovery of Hepatitis C Virus

New medicine Prize 2020 3 scientists share the prize for discovery of Hepatitis C Virus – Free PDF

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NOBEL PRIZE

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine rewards an effort that eventually made blood transfusion safer for everyone. American scientists Harvey Alter and Charles Rice, and Michael Houghton of the UK, have been recognised for their contributions to the discovery of a new virus that was the cause of a vast majority of chronic hepatitis cases, or cases of serious liver inflammation, in patients who required blood transfusion. This virus was eventually called Hepatitis C virus.

Harvey James Alter

Born in 1935, Harvey J Alter is an American medical researcher who has gained worldwide recognition for his work related to discovering the Hepatitis C virus.
According to the Nobel Committee, the 85-year-old carried out his prize-winning studies at the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, where he remains active to date.
Alter earned his medical degree from the University of Rochester, New York, and completed his postgraduate training in Medicine at the Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, and within the University of Washington Hospital system in Seattle. He later also become a clinical associate at the National Institutes of Health.

Charles Rice

Charle Rice was born in 1952 in Sacramento, California. He worked on hepatitis at the Washington University in St. Louis.
He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and was also the president of the American Society for Virology from 2002 to 2003.
In 2016, Rice was the recipient of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, jointly with Ralf F W Bartenschlager and Michael J Sofia. The 68-year-old currently works at Rockefeller University in New York.

Michael Houghton

Born in 1950, British scientist Michael Houghton did his studies at the Chiron Corporation in California before moving to the University of Alberta in Canada.
Houghton has also co-authored a series of studies published in 1989-90 that identified hepatitis C antibodies in the blood. He is also the recipient of the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award (1992), the Robert Koch Prize (1993), and the International Hepatitis Foundation Award (1998)

DISCOVERY

Since the discovery and identification of the virus in the 1970s and 1980s, a cure has been found for the disease, and effective anti-viral drugs are now available. Tests have been developed to identify blood that has this virus, so that infected blood is not given to any patient.
Still, according to the World Health Organization, about 71 million people (6 -11 million of them in India) have chronic infection with the Hepatitis C virus, which also happens to be major cause of liver cancer. In 2016, this viral infection led to the death of nearly 400,000 people across the world. A vaccine for the disease has still not been developed.

What was known about hepatitis before the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus?

Before the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus, two other viruses were known to cause hepatitis in patients. The Hepatitis A virus was known to spread mainly through contaminated food and water, and caused a relatively milder form of liver inflammation.
Hepatitis B, discovered in the 1960s, was known to transmit mainly through infected blood, and caused a more serious form of the disease. Incidentally, the discovery of the Hepatitis B virus too was rewarded with a Nobel Prize in Medicine, given to Baruch Blumberg in 1976. There are vaccines available for this disease now.

What was known about hepatitis before the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus?

The discovery and identification of Hepatitis B virus facilitated the development of a diagnostic test to detect its presence in blood.
Thereafter, only blood sanitised from this virus would be given to patients, but it was observed that even this sanitised blood was able to prevent only 20% of the blood-borne hepatitis cases. It was then that the search for the new virus began.

How was it found, and what was the contribution of each Nobel winner?

In the 1960s, Alter had a collaborated with Blumberg, the 1976 Nobel winner. Alter later moved to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he continues to work.
At NIH, Alter worked at the blood bank and had access to a large collection of blood samples which facilitated his investigations into cases of hepatitis caused after blood transfusion. It was Alter, along with some of this colleagues, who was able to define the characteristics of the then unknown virus.

Why is it significant?

The Nobel Prize website said the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) was one of the important milestones in improvement in public health that had raised hopes for eliminating the disease.
“The discoveries of HBV and HCV, and the establishment of effective screening routines, have virtually eliminated the risk of transmission via blood products in many parts of the world. Thanks to the development of highly effective drugs against HCV, it is now possible, for the first time in human history, to foresee a future where the threat of this virus infection is substantially reduced and hopefully soon eliminated,” it said.
Shahid Jameel, a virologist who has worked extensively on Hepatitis E virus (discovered later), said the simplest way to understand the importance of the work of these scientists was to know that the blood that is given to all kinds of patients has now become a lot safer. “Three main causes of blood-borne infections — Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV — all have been identified, and they no longer infect the blood that is required by patients. This has been a direct results of scientists like them. From a public health point of view, their discovery of the Hepatitis C virus was therefore a very big breakthrough,” said Jameel, now director of Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University.

How is Hepatitis C treated?

“A vaccine for this has not been developed mainly because it’s a very fast-changing virus. But it is possibly the only chronic virus for which a definitive cure is now available,” Jameel said. “Anti-viral drugs could be developed based on the understanding of the biology of the virus to which Harvey’s lab contributed very significantly. In fact, there were a few others whose contributions were equally significant, people like Robert Purcell and Ralf Bartenschlager, but they seemed to have missed out on the Prize only because the Nobel cannot be shared by more than three people. But all in all, a very well deserved recognition for Harvey Alter, Charles Rice, and Michael Houghton,” Jameel said.
Indian effort: One of the important steps towards finding a vaccine was taken by an Indian company in the late 1990s. Hyderabad-based Shantha Biotech, which produced the first recombinant DNA-based vaccine for Hepatitis B infection, had begun work on Hepatitis C as well. It had funded the work of a US-based Indian-origin scientist who had succeeded in sequencing the entire genome of the Hepatitis C virus present in the Indian population. But no progress was made after that.

How was it found, and what was the contribution of each Nobel winner?

But despite over 10 years of effort, Alter and his collaborators were not able to establish the identity of the virus. That work was accomplished by Houghton, who was working independently at Chiron Corporation, a US biotechnology firm. After painstaking work screening over a million DNA sequences, Houghton was able to identify the new virus in 1982, after which it was named Hepatitis C.
In 1997, Rice, then working at Washington University, was able to conclusively show that it was indeed this virus that was causing chronic hepatitis in human beings.

Why is it significant?

The Nobel Prize website said the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) was one of the important milestones in improvement in public health that had raised hopes for eliminating the disease.
Shahid Jameel, a virologist who has worked extensively on Hepatitis E virus (discovered later), said the simplest way to understand the importance of the work of these scientists was to know that the blood that is given to all kinds of patients has now become a lot safer.