Baruch S. Blumberg - Böcker

Toby K. Eisenstein Symposium Committee Chairperson Temple University School of Medicine Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19140 This symposium is the thirteenth biennial clinical microbiology program sponsored by the Eastern Pennsylvania Branch of the American Society for Microbiology in cooperation with the Philadelphia area medical schools and the Bureau of Laboratories of the Pennsylvania Department of Health. This year a generous contribution from Merck, Sharp and Dohme has helped to make the program a reality. The subject matter for this symposium represents an attractive spectrum of medical, biological and molecular approaches to the practical solution of a public health prob1em--name1y, prevention of infection with the hepatitis B virus. The symposium may be unique in that it focuses on a product which was first marketed less than three months ago, but included in the program are presen­ tations on two new approaches to hepatitis B vaccine production which may replace the one which is newly unveiled. The rapidity of progress in our present era of biological research is indeed astonishing.

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.

Toby K. Eisenstein Symposium Committee Chairperson Temple University School of Medicine Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19140 This symposium is the thirteenth biennial clinical microbiology program sponsored by the Eastern Pennsylvania Branch of the American Society for Microbiology in cooperation with the Philadelphia area medical schools and the Bureau of Laboratories of the Pennsylvania Department of Health. This year a generous contribution from Merck, Sharp and Dohme has helped to make the program a reality. The subject matter for this symposium represents an attractive spectrum of medical, biological and molecular approaches to the practical solution of a public health prob1em--name1y, prevention of infection with the hepatitis B virus. The symposium may be unique in that it focuses on a product which was first marketed less than three months ago, but included in the program are presen­ tations on two new approaches to hepatitis B vaccine production which may replace the one which is newly unveiled. The rapidity of progress in our present era of biological research is indeed astonishing.