Hybrid 5

By Baruj Benacerraf

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 11, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462819980

Baruj Benacerraf

Baruj Benacerraf, MD is Fabyan Professor Emeritus of Comparative Pathology at Harvard Medical School, and President Emeritus of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1980 and the National Medal of Science in 1990. In addition to scientific books Baruj Benacerraf published his biography entitled “From Caracas to Stockholm, A life in Medical Science”

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Copyright © 2003 by Baruj Benacerraf.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Chapter 1

Vaxine is a biochem company specializing in vaccines.

Chapter 2

Viktor Halperin is a virologist working on vaccines.

Chapter 3

Halperin is hired by Vaxine to work on cancer and AIDS vaccines.

Chapter 4

The project of an HIV vaccine is described.

Chapter 5

John Alston is a successful lawyer.

Chapter 6

John Alston’s son, age 7, is diagnosed with leukemia.

Chapter 7

John Alston wants to donate blood for his son and he is found to be HIV positive by the blood bank.

Chapter 8

Martin Jamese, a private investigator, is asked by John Alston to investigate how he was infected with the HIV virus.

Chapter 9

John Alston is examined by an AIDS specialist, Dr. Simon, and is found to have antibodies against HIV, but no trace of virus.

Chapter 10

Martin Jamese tries to learn about AIDS and the HIV virus and interviews Dr. Simon.

Chapter 11

The vaccine project is terminated, because of uneffectiveness in monkeys. Halperin resigned and decided to test the HIV vaccine on himself. He steals the viruses from Vaxine.

Chapter 12

Martin Jamese initiates his investigation and is led to look into Halperin. He suspects a relationship between the flu episode suffered by John Alston and infection with the HIV vaccine virus.

Chapter 13

Halperin is hired by a rival company to pursue his work and infects himself with the live HIV virus to test his immunity.

Chapter 14

Martin Jamese reveals to the president of Vaxine that Halperin has spread the HIV vaccine virus responsible for John Alston infection.

Chapter 15

Wentworth explains to John Alston and Jamese that the virus is a hybrid of HIV and influenza and therefore can transmit the flu. But because the HIV genes have been mutated, it cannot give AIDS.

Chapter 16

Dreyfus warns Wentworth that earlier hybrid viruses created by Halperin could transmit AIDS. It is urgent to notify the police and recover the viruses Halperin stole. This is done. Halperin is arrested.

Chapter 17

Dr. Simon informs the CDC of the spread of a new virus. The CDC initiate an investigation.

Chapter 18

The news also hits the media.

Chapter 19

The CDC investigates Halperin’s AIDS vaccine.

Chapter 20

Halperin is seen by Dr. Simon as a patient and meets AIDS patients who are enthusiastic about Halperin’s AIDS vaccine.

Chapter 21

Dr. Sullivan, CDC Director, and Dr. Kormis testify before Congress about the dangers caused by Vaxine’s research.

Chapter 22

The Mafia attempts to steal the HIV Hybrids to blackmail Wentworth

Chapter 23

Vaxine develops an effective monkey’s vaccine that protects monkeys against the SIV virus.

Chapter 24

Chapter 1

Adam Wentworth was destined to inherit a large fortune, which resulted from his family’s control of one of the major tobacco companies in the United States. To the disappointment of his successful father, he had never been interested in the business and from his school days Adam was committed to science and biology.

After a college education at the University of Virginia, Adam decided to become a molecular biologist as well as a geneticist. He received his Ph.D. in genetics at Harvard University.

In 1987, he inherited from his father his shares in the family’s tobacco company. Motivated by a strong sense of guilt, he immediately sold them for several hundred million dollars. With most of his inheritance, he established a nonprofit foundation, The Wentworth Foundation for Cancer Research. While he was in training, he spent much of the foundation’s income in the support of medical research on cancer.

When he reached thirty years of age, after his many years of specialized scientific training and his publication of several brilliant papers on genetic techniques, he seriously considered what he wanted to achieve in his professional life. Teaching or an academic career did not attract him. He had no ambition to become a Nobel laureate.

He felt committed to use basic science in association with the most advanced technology to develop new sets of magic therapeutic agents which would cure deadly diseases such as cancer or AIDS, and benefit mankind. He believed that this would make his life meaningful and would help relieve the guilt he felt for his wealth and power, which resulted from the marketing of cigarettes.

To carry out his plan, he resolved to use the ample resources of the Wentworth Foundation to establish his own biotech company where he could best apply his skills. With the help of equally gifted and committed colleagues he would attract, he felt sure that he would be able to tackle the important goals that motivated him.

He strongly felt that the next several decades would present a unique opportunity to translate the enormous advances in scientific knowledge accumulated in this century in biology, biochemistry, genetics, and immunology, in the design of new therapeutic agents to abolish several of the most dreadful diseases.

Traditionally, in our society, basic scientific research has been carried out in our universities and research institutions, with the support of government and of private funding. Industry, conversely, took on the task of developing new drugs, driven solely by the profit motive.

Increasingly, in the last decades, some form of limited partnership has been initiated between universities and research institutions on the one hand, and industry on the other, to complement their different skills and competence in the development of new agents. But the profit motive, as perceived by the drug industry, always dominated the choice of targets for collaboration.

Based on this analysis, Adam Wentworth was convinced that several areas, critical for public health, remained largely unexplored to date. For instance, many of the advances in the control of severe diseases of mankind and particularly children have resulted from the development of vaccines, as was the case for smallpox, poliomyelitis, measles, whooping cough, and many others.

Nevertheless, there has been very little effort by the pharmaceutical industry and biotech companies in the research and development of new vaccines. The reason for this lack of interest in new vaccines is the understanding by the pharmaceutical industry that there is not much profit to be made in the marketing of vaccines in the third world.

Adam Wentworth, unmotivated by greed, was attracted by the opportunity of developing new vaccines effective against many of the worst ailments of society. The use of modern techniques, available in virology and genetics, now made it possible to design and create new viruses which would be as effective and unharmful as vaccinia, the historical smallpox vaccine, has been.

Adam Wentworth’s biotech company was therefore committed to the development of new vaccines effective against cancer, for a start. He decided to name his company Vaxine and kept control of the company by subscribing to over 50% of its shares.

He retained a reputable attorney, John Alston, as corporation counsel, who helped him design and incorporate Vaxine.

Then he was able within a few days, based on his achievements and persuasive personality, to recruit equally committed subscribers for the remaining shares.

Vaxine was launched in 1990 and established in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Vaxine’s goal was the design and creation of new viruses which would share critical antigens with infectious agents, but which would have lost their capacity to cause disease.

When inoculated, these new live viruses would be able to protect against specific diseases without making the patient ill, as is the case of vaccinia.

In order to accomplish this aim, the most advance genetic technologies needed to be used, to delete from virulent organisms the genes coding for the ability to cause disease and replace them with genes from other viruses lacking such undesirable effects.

These new vaccines would have to be tested initially on monkeys and eventually on human volunteers to demonstrate their efficacy and their lack of significant toxicity. These extensive tests are required by the regulations of the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) before the approval of a new product is granted.

Adam Wentworth was able to recruit rapidly a very able group of highly competent, enthusiastic scientists for Vaxine.

Among these were Toshi Hanakoa, a brilliant geneticist of Japanese extraction, whom he entrusted with the task of scientific director; Peter Briant, an accomplished molecular biologist; Viktor Halperin, an experienced virologist; and Gerard Dreyfus, an immunologist with an outstanding record of original discoveries, who would be in charge of vaccine development.

With their help and advice, he designed and built modern laboratories with all the equipment needed to carry out the most sophisticated experiments in cell biology, genetics, and immunology.

Within a few months after its establishment, Vaxine had already initiated its first experiments.

But the most important task was the master research plan. Wentworth chaired numerous meetings of the staff and the Scientific Advisory Committee where the critical decisions were made. After many heated discussions, it was finally agreed to devote the resources and energy of Vaxine, initially, to the development of two types of vaccines or viruses:

1 ) Viruses able to infect selectively malignant tumors and elicit their destruction.

2) Vaccines capable of generating immunity against established metastatic cancers, which are the deadliest malignancies.

These were, indeed, ambitious projects, but Adam Wentworth and his resourceful colleagues were not intimidated by the magnitude of the task. They felt that science had provided enough information to permit the design of ideally effective agents against these diseases through appropriate technologies.

Of course, they realized that it would be a long road and that the first products would have to be tested, retested, and repeatedly modified to achieve the required effectiveness.

Gerard Dreyfus was an experienced, mature immunologist who had spent over 10 years at the National Institute of Health before joining the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School.

Adam Wentworth had recruited him because of his studies on cancer antigens.

Toshi Hanaoka was particularly enthusiastic about the proposal and assured that it would be no problem for him to identify and isolate the genes for cancer-specific antigens, and committed himself to initiate the search for such genes for breast and prostate specific antigens.

Viktor Halperin took on the responsibility to select the viruses capable of infecting selectively cancer cells, and Peter Briant volunteered to be responsible for the technology of inserting the genes into the viral genome.

The work proceeded successfully according to plan and it was expected that the first vaccines would be available for phase I trial in 2004.

Chapter 2

Viktor Halperin was the son of Sarah and Abraham Halperin, a Polish-Jewish tailor who emigrated from Warsaw shortly before World War II. Viktor was born in 1955, the youngest of three children. His father had married Sarah, the only daughter of a middle-class Brooklyn businessman who had been successful in the manufacture of women’s clothing. Abraham had joined his father-in-law in his business and had managed to expand it successfully. Both Abraham and Sarah had built a warm and loving home for Viktor and his two sisters in Brooklyn, NY.

Viktor was a bright and precocious child, but his childhood had been badly affected by several unpleasant disabilities, which tended to affect his ability to build a strong and confident persona.

He had to work very hard to learn how to read, and he was never able to spell correctly, in spite of all his strenuous efforts. He was dyslexic before that condition was readily recognized in our school system. In addition, he suffered from severe childhood asthma. Both these disabilities seriously affected Viktor’s ability to perform in school, particularly in middle school classes. The low grades he earned in school in spite of his efforts rendered him very sensitive to the criticism of his peers and afraid of authority.

Fortunately, as he grew up, his childhood asthma disappeared.

By the age of twelve, Viktor had finally managed to read fast enough to become competitive in high school and to enjoy discovering new worlds previously hidden to him, both in science and literature. At that time, also, his brilliant intelligence had fully developed and encouraged him to apply to college and eventually to consider a career in science, which fascinated him.

But his early-childhood problems left an imprint on his personality. He had, by necessity, accustomed himself to be a loner, always hypersensitive to criticism, with a tendency towards secrecy and occasional lying to protect himself.

Nevertheless, because of his exceptional intelligence, these personality defects, while they interfered with the development of serious friendships and close relationships, did not affect his ability to be highly successful both at City College and later in graduate school at Columbia University.

Viktor greatly enjoyed City College. He felt free and uninhibited for the first time in his life. His gnawing curiosity for knowledge could be satisfied, at last.

His dyslexia was no longer a problem. He could read fast enough and the modern PC had corrected his spelling problem. He soon learned that he should be proud rather than ashamed to be dyslexic since he shared that deficiency with Albert Einstein, among other famous people.

Possibly because of his childhood asthma and the struggle he experienced in his early years with dyslexia, he had an inherent curiosity for biology and medical science. But, he had no desire to become a physician. He knew he would not enjoy taking care of others, or being responsible for their health or welfare. Neither did he want to be a teacher, which he felt was boring. His overwhelming curiosity and ambition led him to a career in science.

After majoring in biochemistry, the necessary basic tool and language of all biological sciences, Viktor became impressed by the enormous influence that microbes, bacteria and viruses, had on mankind over the centuries. He had read about the famous plagues. He had been fascinated by the contributions of Jenner, Pasteur, Koch, Metchikov, and many others who, in the last century, introduced the technique