Issue date: 1/26/10 Section: News

Media Credit: Photo courtesy of William Halford Ringo Püschel, Brandon Rakowski, William Halford and Mingyu Liu played important roles in the development of a possible Herpes Simplex Virus Type Two vaccine.

More than one in five individuals have contracted herpes, and almost 70 percent of the population contracts herpes in one form or another, according to Director of Health Services Riane Greenwalt. Those between the ages of 20 and 29 are twice as likely to become infected as they were two decades ago, but a scientist at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield said he believes he has found a cure for the virus.

SIU School of Medicine professor Bill Halford has researched herpes for nearly 20 years. He said his breakthrough came in 2006.

"I was really working on other questions that had to do with the biology of Herpes Simplex Virus One, and, in doing experiments, [I] randomly came across an observation where this type of mutant-Herpes Simplex Virus Type One-I was working on exhibited the properties you would expect out of a vaccine strain," Halford said.

There are two different types of herpes, Herpes Simplex Virus One and Herpes Simplex Virus Two, according to Halford; type one involves contact with the mouth and type two affects the genitals, according to www.herpesonline.org.

Halford's technique is to take a live viral strain of the herpes virus and create a vaccine with that live virus. He said he almost did not receive grant money to fund the research.

"[The reviewers] sort of looked at the flip side of the coin. It's a really risky approach, that's their words, but maybe it's worth looking into. But they really do view it as, it's sort of like going to the race track and betting on the 100-1 horse to win …," Halford said.

SIU alumnus Brandon Rakowski was Halford's lab technician and, according to Halford, created the vaccine strains being used.

"We've made multiple vaccine strains, manipulating multiple regions of the HSV genome to try to come up with a usable vaccine that kind of is not going to be too virulent and cause death, but also be able to replicate and stimulate a good immune response within the host," Rakowski said.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools