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Destroying the Enemy Within
| Article
# : |
14437 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1988 |
2,441 Words |
| Author
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Allan Goldstein
Allan Goldstein is chairman of the Department of Biochemistry
at George Washington School of Medicene. |
Scientists in the laboratory are beginning to define the central reason for the downhill slide of health that begins in middle age. Much of it hinges on the immune system. Such far-reaching medical advances have occurred in the field of immunology over the past five years that it is now realistic to predict the emergence of potent new therapeutic agents that, by increasing the vigor of the immune system, will reverse and/or prevent many life-threatening diseases.
Many of the body's natural drugs, including key immunity hormones and other biological response modifiers, that is immune-system-produced proteins that modify some biological response, have now been discovered. These "new medicines," with names like thymosins, interleukins, interferons, and monoclonal antibodies, are being tested for the first time in humans, with tremendous promise for success.
With the help of genetic engineering and the dramatic breakthrough in mass-producing proteins by the technology known as solid-phase peptide synthesis, we can now produce large enough quantities of these new medicines to treat diseases. Previously, these natural drugs could be obtained only in small amounts, as they are only found in trace amounts in the body.
By harnessing the body's own natural defense against disease, scientists are beginning to develop "smart weapons" that may well allow us to take the offensive in the fight against cancer and other life-threatening diseases that have plagued mankind since the beginning of history. They may also allow us to develop treatments to combat deadly new viruses, like the AIDS virus that does so much damage to the body's immune system.
In the coming months, from human trials already in progress, treatments will emerge that will augment or replace many of our old disease-fighting drugs. These new medicines will be less toxic because they augment the body's own immune system rather than attempt to replace it; they will be far more effective than anything medical science could have possibly imagined just a few years ago.
In 1984 I was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Aging. At that time I testified that "the potential for using the body's own natural immunity to deal with disease on a rational basis may well become the most dramatic development that has occurred in medical science in this century." It now appears that this prediction may become a
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