The Minds Behind the Cure

The nation's first effective cervical cancer vaccine was approved for sale this summer by the Food and Drug Administration, ending a 16-year quest for two University of Louisville Cancer researchers intent on stamping out cervical cancer, a disease that kills nearly 5,000 women annually in the United States.

The researchers, A. Bennett Jenson, M.D., and Shin-je Ghim, Ph.D., started work on the vaccine in 1989 while still at Georgetown University.

There, along with Richard Schlegel, M.D., Ph.D., they developed a vaccine that has proven to be 100 percent effective against the two most common carcinogenic strains of sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, HPV-16 and -18. These viruses can lead to the development of pre-malignant lesions in women and, eventually, cervical cancer.

For the vaccine to be effective, it must be given before a woman is infected with HPV.

"It really makes me feel good," Jenson said of his work on the groundbreaking vaccine. "I can look back and say I was a part of leaving something important behind."

Jenson and Ghim have continued their vaccine research in Louisville
after joining UofL's James Graham Brown Cancer Center in 2002.

Both have spent decades researching HPV. In the mid-1980s, Jenson began working to find a virus in animals that also occurs in humans. His goal was simple: Wipe it out.

That's when Jenson's three daughters, who then ranged in age from 16 to 20, suggested he focus on a disease that affects women. HPV seemed a natural choice, since researchers had recently identified it as the leading cause of cervical cancer.

There were only about 20 known versions of the virus in 1985, when Jenson began studying it, but more than 100 have been cataloged now.

Ghim, who obtained her Ph.D. at University Lyon 1 and trained at the world-renowned Pasteur Institute, joined Jenson's effort in 1989. As a molecular virologist and immunologist, she provided critical expertise to Jenson's research team, he says.

Now that their vaccine has been approved for sale, Jenson and Ghim are attempting to develop a less expensive variant.

Using a novel transgenic approach that harnesses tobacco plants to produce the vaccine, Jenson and Ghim hope to provide an unlimited supply at a fraction of the cost possible with conventional methods.

If successful, they say the cost of the HPV vaccine could drop from an estimated $360 per series to just $3.

Development of the transgenic vaccine currently is being undertaken in collaboration with Kenneth Palmer, Ph.D., formerly of Large Scale Biological Co. in Owensboro, Ky.

Jenson and Ghim also are working on a second transgenic HPV vaccine with Arthur Weissinger, Ph.D., of North Carolina State University.

A low-cost vaccine would have a tremendous impact on health care, particularly in developing or impoverished nations, Jenson says.

Cervical cancer accounts for 2.3 deaths per 100,000 members of the population in the United States, where annual screenings for cervical cancer are common, according to the American Cancer Society.

But the rate is almost four times the U.S. figure in Bulgaria and eight times higher in Columbia. Some of the world's worst cervical cancer statistics have been recorded in the African nations of Mali and Zimbabwe, where the annual death rates are 28.4 and 43.1 per 100,000 population, respectively.

Worldwide, about 250,000 women die each year from cervical cancer.