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.
Halford said he diluted the herpes virus in his vaccine so it does not cause complications. If the virus had not been diluted there was potential for the recipient to contract herpes instead of being cured of it.
“When a virus enters your body, there is a layer of your immune defenses that go up immediately, and it’s called the interferon system because it interferes with viral replication … what I’ve done is gone into Herpes Simplex Virus Type Two and tweaked one of the protons that counteracts the interferon system,” Halford said. “What that does is it takes the virus that in nature is very, very resistant to interferon and now it becomes very, very sensitive. So, when you infect somebody with it, their defenses go up, and the virus just quits replicating.”
Because the possible cure consists of injecting a live herpes virus into individuals-a method which has only been tested on rats-skeptics arise, according to Halford.
“[The herpes virus] can literally kill people. So when you say, ‘Now what I want to do is deliberately infect people with Herpes Simplex Virus Type Two’…what they hear is you directly want to infect people with Herpes Simplex Virus Type Two. So, that’s where the controversy comes in because they go, ‘How could that possibly be safe?’” Halford said.
Most individuals who oppose the method, according to Halford, only view the possibility from one point of view.
“My training is in virology, the study of viruses, and my other training is in the study of the host immune system. Most of the people that are critics have their training solely in virology, so they’re thinking of it purely from the standpoint of the virus,” Halford said.
Greenwalt said positive things will come from a cure for herpes.
“Even though most people think that herpes is non-lethal, you have worldwide deaths from herpes. If it’s a bad enough infection, you can die from it. So, if herpes gets in your eyes or along your mucus membranes or anything like that it can be quite severe,” Greenwalt said.
Halford said new technologies have been developed since 1970 when live vaccines were first looked into. Some scientists, according to Halford, fear using a vaccine strain of herpes could cause individuals to become infected, but said his research proves otherwise.
“We know a great deal about viruses that we didn’t know before and how to do genetic engineering, and we haven’t really taken advantage of that technology, and that’s basically what I’m doing,” Halford said. “We’ve been so indebted in this dogma that everyone considers it dangerous, that nobody really considers the possibility … It’s sort of like an ostrich with their head stuck in the sand saying, ‘So we’re just not going to look at the possibility.’”
Halford said he hopes to have his finding published by August and clinical trials beginning in two to three years after presenting his finding to the Food and Drug Administration or another company in order to fund further research.
