Interview about 2011 Nobel Prizein Physiology or Medicine
H: Welcome back, Dr. Fauci.
So, before we get into the details, in general terms,
this is about how the body fights disease?
D: Indeed. What the laureates established and discovered
was the precise mechanisms
whereby the two components of the immune system
are activated.
The very primitive, innate immune system,
which was what Beutler and Hoffmann discovered,
and then the connection between that innate immune system
and what we call the adaptive immune system,
which is a much more sophisticated part of our immune system,
which is what Ralph Steinman was able to delineate
by discovering this very specialized cell.
So really it's very worthy discoveries of the Nobel Prize.
H: All right, so, how do these breakthroughs
translate into treatments or therapies or vaccines?
D: Well, they're going to be very, very important,
for example, in determining the molecular mechanisms of
how you activate the immune system,
which would immediately allow you to control it,
either by boosting it with what we call adjuvants
or suppressing it when it gets out of line.
Particularly the dendritic cells are very interesting, in that
the front line of the future type of vaccines
are using dendritic cells
that you actually pulse with a particular protein
that you want the body to make an immune response to.
And then you infuse it back into the body,
so that it now very, very specifically
induces an immune response.
So it has implications for everything
from cancer, to vaccination, to adjuvants,
and to protecting us against infections.
H: And you said it's going to be.
Has it no vaccines yet? I mean, where do things stand?
D: No, there's no product on the shelf,
as it were, that is the result of this.
But the science is so elegant in this,
that there's no question
that these are going to be breaking through
and really providing
some very important countermeasures in the future,
be they vaccines or therapies against cancer.