A New Vaccine Technology Against Hepatitis C Virus

Hepatitis C virus, which is responsible from millions of infections each year worldwide, could be prevented by a vaccine. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have developed a vaccine which works against the effects of Hepatitis C.

Much similar to HIV virus, hepatitis C virus straightaway affects liver, causing cirrhosis and lung cancer. Since the virus mutates strongly, there is no traditional vaccine to protect against it.

"The hepatitis C virus (HCV) has the same infection pathways as HIV. Approximately one newly infected patient in five has an immune system capable of defeating an acute HCV infection in the first six months. But most cases do not present any symptoms at all and the virus becomes a chronic infection of the liver," said Jan Pravsgaard Christensen, Associate Professor of Infection Immunology at the University.

Scientists have been working for years to eradicate the disease by engineering a vaccine. However, the virus mutates rapidly, making it difficult to pin down. As soon as a vaccine can be developed, the microorganism has changed, making it immune to drugs.

"We took a dead common cold virus, an adenovirus that is completely harmless and which many of us have met in childhood. We hid the gene for one of the HCV’s internal molecules inside it. At the same time we attached a special molecule on the internal molecule so that when the cells of the mouse body tried to take a sample, they would extract a more extensive section,” Professor Christensen said.

"The immune defences would then be presented with a larger section of the molecule concerned. You may say that the immune defences were given an entire palm print of the internal genes instead of just a single fingerprint," he said.

Given the high prevalence of the disease and the fact that it is so difficult to fight once it has reached a chronic stage, the researchers said that their vaccine has the possibility to save millions of lives.

The University of Copenhagen is also currently negotiating the sale of the patent for the process so that the technology can be developed for use in human vaccines.

The finding has been published in the Journal of Immunology.

A New Vaccine Technology Against Hepatitis C Virus