Enzo Paoletti
Enzo Paoletti | |
---|---|
Born | May 22, 1943 Monti di Villa, Bagni di Lucca, Lucca, Italy |
Died | January 17, 2018 |
Nationality | Italian-American |
Occupation | Virologist |
Enzo Paoletti (May 22, 1943 – January 17, 2018) was an Italian-American virologist who developed the technology to express foreign antigens in vaccinia and other poxviruses. This advance led to the development of vaccines against multiple disease-causing pathogens.
Education
Enzo Paoletti was born in Monti di Villa, Bagni di Lucca,
Career and research achievements
In 1974, Paoletti joined the Wadsworth Center for Laboratories and Research at the New York State Department of Health in Albany as a senior research scientist. Four seminal papers, all published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with Dennis Panicali and others provided the technology and proof of principle to construct live vaccines using genetically engineered poxviruses.[3][4][5][6] In 1990 Paoletti's laboratory was the first to sequence the genome of vaccinia virus,[7] an achievement gained without the use of high-throughput DNA sequencers.
In 1981, Paoletti founded and was the Founding Scientist of Virogenetics Corporation, a private, for-profit company based in Troy, New York to commercialize vectored vaccines.[8] Over the years, highly attenuated poxvirus vectors (NYVAC, ALVAC and TROVAC) that induced cell-mediated and humoral responses were developed.[9][10]
Vaccines against several pathogens including avian influenza virus, Newcastle disease virus, cytomegalovirus, canine distemper virus, feline leukemia virus, feline immunodeficiency virus, equine influenza virus, equine herpes virus, Japanese encephalitis virus, human T cell leukemia/lymphoma virus type 1, African horse sickness virus, rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus, herpes simplex virus, hepatitis C virus, bluetongue virus, pseudorabies virus, and diseases such as malaria,[11] HIV, and tuberculosis were developed using engineered poxvirus vectors.[12] While many vaccines are in preclinical or clinical development, six have been licensed for veterinary use.[12]
A prime-dose regimen with canarypox ALVAC-HIV (vCP1521) vaccine and HIV-1 gp120 AIDSVAX B/E was found to be safe, well tolerated and 31.2% effective for the prevention of HIV acquisition in HIV-uninfected adults in Thailand.[13]
Poxvirus vectors have also been used to develop vaccines against specific cancers.[12]
This highly-adaptable viral vectored vaccine platform has been adopted by researchers to prevent infection against many pathogens, including the pandemic-causing SARS-CoV-2[14]
Awards and academic affiliations
Paoletti received numerous awards including: New York State Regents Scholarship, the National Institutes of Health Predoctoral Traineeship, the New York State Department of Health Predoctoral Fellowship, National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship, Il Leone Di San Marco Award for Science (1984) and Rhone- Poulenc Prix Innovation (1991).
He was affiliated with several scientific societies namely: American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Virology, American Association for the Advancement of Science, New York State Academy of Science, American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the International Association of Biological Standardization.
Paoletti also served as on the editorial board of several journals including Journal of Virology, and Virology. He held adjunct professorships at SUNY-Albany, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Albany Medical College of Union University.
References
- PMID 5242206.
- ^ "David Baltimore - Nobel Lecture: Viruses, Polymerases and Cancer". www.nobelprize.org. Retrieved July 5, 2018.
- PMID 6951197.
- PMID 6289324.
- PMID 6310573.
- PMID 6320164.
- PMID 2219722.
- ^ "New York State Weighs Venture to Market Vaccine". The New York Times. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
- PMID 7958484.
- PMID 7796949.
- PMID 9607847.
- ^ PMID 25853483.
- PMID 22205930.
- PMID 33740454.
Patents
Google Patent of Paoletti's patents
External links
- Google Scholar of Paoletti's publications
- New York Times article on Paoletti's announcement of the discovery of vaccinia vectored vaccines (1983)
- New York Times article on Paoletti's vaccine against herpes (1983)
- Wallis, Claudia (October 31, 1983)."Medicine: Made-to-Order Vaccines". Time.
- New York Times Magazine article on new vaccine developments (1984)
- Science and Technology article on Vaccinia vectored vaccines (1985)
- New York Times article on Vaccinia-vectored vaccines (1988)
- The Scientist brief on Virogenetics and Institut Merieux partnership (1990)
- Review by Patricia Thomas of Big Shot: Passion, Politics, and the Struggle for an AIDS Vaccine (2002)
- Tribute to Dr. Paoletti in Il Tirreno, Lucca Edition, (January 23, 2018) (in Italian)