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Baruch Blumberg - A meeting in Japan and the 40th anniversary of my first paper (73/80)

55 views · Published 30 June 2017 · 3:18 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

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To hear more of Baruch Blumberg’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QedXwz9QEXY&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFyPwAEJ9YaYAsj3ANqc9teW

The late Baruch Blumberg (1925-2011) was an American scientist and doctor whose most significant contributions to medicine include the identification of the Hepatitis B virus. He was one of three co-recipients of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. [Listener: Rebecca Blanchard; date recorded: 2007]

TRANSCRIPT: I'm going to go to Japan. And there's a meeting there that is… that is focused on a anti-viral for hepatitis B. But the people who are funding this, which is a big drug company, who makes this stuff. It's a… it’s a pretty good, actually, it's fairly effective, the… the trials were impressive. But there… there's a group of these drugs that, very often, the virus becomes resistant. So in a way, the more you have, the more possibilities there are. And I think, one day, there'll, some kind of combination therapy will eventually emerge that, you know, put together, working on different parts of the pathology, pathogenesis cycle, or pathogenesis scheme, you will be able to really get quite a lot… so, quite a lot of control, and decrease the levels of… of virus.

[RB] Different antigenic loci from the same kind of virus, you mean, or different viruses?

The same virus, I mean, broadly speaking, the same virus. There, it turns out, you know, there isn't a big difference, there's some difference in the strains of the virus, in terms of treatment. There is. Some respond rather better, but it's not as striking as it is with some other things like papilloma virus, for example. Or even AIDS, you know, where some respond much better. Some of the varieties. So I…  but I think that, you know, there's a funny characteristic of hepatitis B; it doesn't lend itself to mutation very readily. It mutates far less than AIDS; I mean, a lot less, and a lot less than hepatitis C virus, too. And part of the reason is, it's got this somewhat strange, really constricted genome that's… that's… has two bands, you know. And it turns out, if you have a mutation in… in one locus, you'll also… you'll also mutate a second... at least one other locus at the same time, which may make it non-viable. So there's far less mutation. And as I said, it hasn't affected the vaccine, these, the vacs... so far, anyhow. So, and there hasn't been kind of runaway strains of the virus that you can't… that you can't… you know, you absolutely can't treat. Okay, so... but then they called and asked me if I'd come and talk there. And they said, well, you know, this is the 40th anniversary of your first paper, which was, they reminded me, was published in 1967. Well, you know, I knew about the paper, obviously, but I'd sort of forgotten, or if I did, I didn't notice it, so there's, it's going to be kind of associated with the 40th anniversary of the paper. Since I did some of my original field work in Japan, you know, I hope some of my old colleagues will be there.

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