In the 1970s, just before AIDS appeared, science witnessed an upsurge
in knowledge about how cells and viruses function at the molecular
level. In the early 1980s, NIH researchers continued to learn more
as they applied their hard-won knowledge to stopping AIDS. By 1986,
they could describe the nature and shape of HIV proteins as well
as key molecules on the immune system cells that HIV infects. Scientists
knew the process by which HIV multiplies and infects new cells,
and they had identified several vulnerable points in this process:
where the virus enters a cell and three points in its reproductive
cycle inside the cell. Developing drugs to combat viruses was a
nascent science, but Dr. Samuel Broder and his National Cancer Institute
colleagues worked with the Burroughs Wellcome company to identify
a drug, AZT, that suppressed HIV replication. Later, he and others
led studies on AZTs antiretroviral cousins, ddI and ddC. Since
then, other AIDS drugs have been developed based on the basic understanding
of HIV and the human immune response gained over many years. Meanwhile,
Dr. Henry Masur and others in the NIH Clinical Center initiated
pivotal drug studies addressing the opportunistic infections associated
with AIDS, while Dr. H. Clifford Lane investigated ways to boost
the weakened immune response. And in August 1987, Dr. Lane and his
colleagues in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
launched the first human trial of an AIDS vaccine. All this activity
took place in a media fishbowl. NIAID Director Dr. Anthony
S. Faucis response to the pressure of activists demanding
early access to promising AIDS treatments cracked the ivory
tower mentality wide open and forever changed the way the
search for treatments at NIH is conducted.
|