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This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three scientists who contributed to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus (HCV), paving the way for research that would lead to the development of an effective treatment and potentially the eventual elimination of the hepatitis C virus (HCV). threat to health.
Award winners Harvey Alter, MD, of the National Institutes of Health, Michael Houghton, PhD, of the University of Alberta in Canada, and Charles Rice, PhD, of Rockefeller University in New York City, will share the award. of $ 1.07 million in equal parts.
“Prior to his work, the discovery of the hepatitis A and B viruses had been critical steps forward, but the majority of cases of blood-borne hepatitis remained unexplained,” the Nobel Assembly said in its announcement of the prize. “The discovery of the hepatitis C virus revealed the cause of the remaining cases of chronic hepatitis and made possible blood tests and new drugs that have saved millions of lives.”
Before the identification of HCV, hepatitis C was called “non-A / non-B hepatitis” because it was clearly a separate disease not caused by the two hepatitis viruses recognized at that time. Over years or decades, chronic hepatitis C can lead to serious liver complications such as cirrhosis, liver cancer, and the need for a liver transplant.
Concerned about unexplained cases of hepatitis among blood transfusion recipients who tested negative for hepatitis A and B viruses, Alter and his team at the National Institutes of Health demonstrated that blood from these patients could transmit the disease to chimpanzees, the only other susceptible host besides humans. . But the new virus eluded detection for more than a decade.
Houghton, then at Chiron Corporation, and his colleagues worked to crack the genetic code of the virus, using antibodies from patients with the mysterious disease to identify fragments of viral genetic material. Finally, they identified a new RNA virus in the Flavivirus family.
Rice and her team at Washington University in St. Louis used genetic engineering to create a variant of HCV capable of replicating itself and which, when injected into the liver of chimpanzees, causes pathological changes similar to those seen in people with the disease. unexplained illness.
The researchers’ work led to the development of HCV blood tests that, along with hepatitis B screening tests, have essentially eliminated post-transfusion hepatitis in many parts of the world, according to the Nobel Assembly.
Before the advent of direct-acting antiviral drugs in 2013, the standard of care for hepatitis C was interferon-based therapy, which typically involved weekly injections for six months to a year, caused difficult side effects, and cured only at about 1 hour. half of the patients treated. Today, nearly all people with HCV can be cured in two to three months with well-tolerated oral medications, which leading Hepatitis C experts and advocates seek to eliminate Hepatitis C as a public health problem throughout the world.
Alter and Houghton previously shared a Lasker Prize, considered the “American Nobel”, for their research on hepatitis C in 2000, and Rice received that award in 2016, along with Ralf Bartenschlager, PhD, of University Hospital Heidelberg, and Michael Sofia, PhD, of Arbutus Biopharma. In 2013, Houghton turned down a prestigious Canadian award because it failed to recognize two of his colleagues at Chiron, Qui-Lim Choo, PhD, and George Kuo, PhD, who played an integral role in investigating the discovery.
Speaking to reporters this week, Houghton said he would accept the Nobel Prize, but again emphasized the collaborative nature of scientific research. “Most of the great inventions, not all, but most, involve many people,” he said.
Click here to learn more about Hepatitis C.
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