Hepatitis B : The Hunt for a Killer Virus / Baruch S. Blumberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blumberg, Baruch S., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hepatitis B vaccine--Research--History.

Hepatitis B vaccine.

Hepatitis B virus--Research--History.

Hepatitis B virus.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 pages)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

About 375 million people are infected with the hepatitis B virus. It has killed more people than AIDS and also causes millions of cases of liver cancer. The discovery of this deadly virus and the vaccine against it--a vaccine that is sharply decreasing the infection rate worldwide and is probably the first effective cancer vaccine--was one of the great triumphs of twentieth-century medicine. And it almost didn't happen. With wit and insight, this scientific memoir and story of discovery describes how Baruch Blumberg and a team of researchers found a virus they were not looking for and created a vaccine for a disease they previously knew little about--work that took the author around the world and won him the Nobel Prize. Blumberg and his collaborators were investigating relationships between gene distribution and disease susceptibility, research that was yielding interesting data but no real breakthroughs. Many viewed their work as more field trip than science. But, through decades of hard work and investigative twists and turns, their pursuit led to the hepatitis B antigen, the elusive virus itself, and, ultimately, the vaccine. As he takes the reader through the detective work that culminated in his incredible discovery, the author recounts with immediacy exciting moments in the lab and in the field--from a hair-raising flight to Africa to an unpleasant encounter with Alaskan sled dogs. The hepatitis B story is more than a fascinating chronicle of a major discovery. What Blumberg followed to the virus was a trail of remarkable "accidents" that happen when scientists seek answers to interesting questions. Those events, combined with the investigator's determined persistence, resulted in studies that generated a pharmaceutical industry, have far-flung public-health applications, and saved millions of lives.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. Differences in Response to Disease

Chapter 2. Oxford and the National Institutes of Health: Inherited Variation and Susceptibility to Disease

Chapter 3. Polymorphisms and Geography: Disease, Genetics, and Evolutionary Biology

Chapter 4. We Discover a New Polymorphism: The Ag System

Chapter 5. The Discovery of Australia Antigen

Chapter 6. What Is Australia Antigen?

Chapter 7. Identifying the Hepatitis B Virus

Chapter 8. The Control of Posttransfusion Hepatitis

Chapter 9. The Hepatitis B Vaccine

Chapter 10. Hepatitis B Virus and Cancer of the Liver

Chapter 11. What Is Now Known about HBV?

Chapter 12. Back to Polymorphisms and Inherited Susceptibility to Disease

Chapter 13. HBV and Its Connections: Current Research and the Future

Appendix 1. Scientists and Staff at Fox Chase Cancer Center Referred to in the Text

Appendix 2. Research on Hyaluronic Acid

Appendix 3. The National Institutes of Health and the Funding of Basic Medical Research

Appendix 4. Molecular Biology

Appendix 5. A Gazetteer of Selected Place-Names Used in the Text

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 21. Dez 2019)

ISBN:

9780691187235

0691187231

OCLC:

1035595044