Researchers Fight Bioterrorism With Next Generation Vaccine Technology
Story Number: NNS020211-02
Release Date: 2/11/2002 6:53:00 AM
By Jan Davis, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
SILVER SPRING, Md. (NNS) -- They fight the war against deadly diseases and bioterrorism in lab coats at the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC). Their weapons are computers, petri dishes and dogged determination. They are Capt. Daniel J. Carucci, Medical Corps (MC); Capt. Al Mateczun, MC, and Capt. Darrell R. Galloway, Medical Service Corps.
These medical researchers may be three of America's most mighty warriors against bioterrorists' weapons of mass destruction -- deadly diseases such as anthrax and smallpox.
For years, they have been fighting the battle almost unnoticed to all but the military, which looks to them to protect American fighting men and women who may be sent in harm's way, to far corners of the world where malaria, dengue fever and scrub typhus can fell servicemen and women as effectively as a bullet.
Building on the innovative DNA vaccine models developed by Carucci and his fellow Navy researchers, the three captains and their colleagues have quietly worked in laboratories at NMRC to develop the next generation of vaccines against deadly diseases, whether they are naturally occurring or bio-engineered weapons.
Traditional vaccines have saved countless millions, but have their limitations. They take years to develop and can be difficult and costly to manufacture. They need constant refrigeration, and generally cannot be mixed to inoculate against more than one disease at a time. And there's always the danger of side effects.
But now, Carucci, Mateczun, Galloway and their colleagues may have taken the first steps to a potential new generation of vaccines, which is expected to be safer, cheaper, stable, have fewer side effects, be more effective against a wider variety of diseases and easier to administer.
They are expected to have what the researchers call "agility" -- that is, they can be retailored quickly to become "just-in-time" inoculations against bacteria, viruses or other pathogens that have emerged or re-engineered to make existing vaccines ineffective.
"One of the potential advantages of this agile vaccine technology, which the Navy is a leader in developing, is that production from start to finish might take a matter of months, not years," said Rear Adm. Steven Hart, MC, head of the Navy's medical research programs.
While traditional vaccines use live virus or killed organisms that stimulate humans and animals to develop an immune response against a specific disease, these agile vaccines will use fragments of organisms' DNA.
Carucci and Galloway are recognized world leaders in development of these DNA vaccines, and they say these vaccines aren't dreams of the future. As a result of their tested effectiveness, today's children may be the first generation to have no fear of some of the world's most deadly scourges.
Mateczun, a prominent expert on biological defense, is one of the unsung heroes in responding to the recent anthrax attacks. He and his team are the inventors of the rapid hand-held assays that were used nationwide to screen for anthrax.
They were the first to identify anthrax contamination at the U.S. Supreme Court, Central Intelligence Agency mail room, within the State Department diplomatic mail-pouch system, and in one of the congressional office buildings.
Galloway and Mateczun's most important work now focuses on developing an agile anthrax DNA vaccine. To date, the team has successfully immunized both mice and rabbits against inhalation anthrax using their vaccine, and hopes to be able to begin human trials in 2003.
Carucci and his colleagues' agile DNA vaccine focuses on malaria, historically one of the world's most feared killers and underminers of readiness in troops deploying to tropical areas. The agile malaria DNA vaccine is now in second stage human trials with promising initial results.
Last year, based on research conducted by Carucci and his colleagues, the Navy was issued a U.S. patent on all DNA vaccines against malaria. Nature, a highly respected scientific journal, will dedicate its March 2002 issue to Navy researchers and others working on the agile malaria DNA vaccine.
Carucci and Mateczun are active-duty members of the Navy's Medical Corps. Galloway is a Naval Reservist who recently joined the team full time. When not on active duty, he is a medical researcher in DNA vaccines at Ohio State University.
Together, these researchers will lead a program at NMRC to apply this technology to the war on bioterrorism.
