Interferon discovery and ferret flu

摘要

Fifty years ago virologists were struggling to understand why an inactivated virus reduced the ability of a normal virus to infect cells — a process called interference. Jean Lindenmann and Alick Isaacs at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) at Mill Hill, London, found the answer in less than a year of intensive and inspired research1'2. The inactivated virus triggered the infected cells to produce a protein that suppressed replication of the live virus. The protein, called interferon, turned out to be a useful therapy for hepatitis C and many cancers. Jean Lindenmann, now 83, talks to Nature.