Researchers Develop Animal Model of Smallpox

U.S. scientists have developed the first animal model of smallpox that closely resembles the human disease by using variola virus to produce lethal infections in monkeys, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases announced this week (see GSN, June 10).

Research team leader Peter Jahrling and his colleagues exposed 36 cynomolgous monkeys to one of two strains of variola virus, the causative agent for smallpox. All the animals contracted terminal smallpox, according to the study published in this week’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Despite its limitations,” the authors wrote, “the intravenous variola primate model ... has already provided valuable insight into the pathogenesis of this exquisitely adapted human pathogen.”

An animal model for the disease is needed to test smallpox vaccines and treatments that could provide protection against terrorist attacks using the biological agent, according to a USAMRIID press release distributed by the State Department.

A U.S. Institute of Medicine study group in 1999 recommended researching the variola virus, and a research plan was approved by the World Health Organization to develop an animal model of the disease, according to the State Department.

“Aside from the technical accomplishments, what’s notable about these studies is the collaboration between multiple agencies — including the Department of Defense and the academic sector — to address the issues raised in the 1999 Institute of Medicine report on the need to retain live variola virus,” study co-author James LeDuc of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in the press release. “This report has been the basis for the national smallpox research agenda, and these papers are the first significant publications to come from those efforts.”

Infectious variola is known to exist only in two WHO-sanctioned repositories — one in Russia and the other at the CDC in Atlanta. However, concern over the diversion of undocumented smallpox stocks heightens the importance of vaccine research, according to the press release (State Department release, Oct. 6).

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