History
In 1942, Merrill Chase discovered that cells taken from the peritoneum of Guinea pigs that had been immunized against an antigen could transfer immunity when injected into Guinea pigs that had never been exposed to the antigen; this phenomenon was the discovery of cell-mediated immunity. Subsequent research attempted to uncover how the cells imparted their effects. Henry Sherwood Lawrence, in 1955, discovered that partial immunity could be transfered even when the immune cells had undergone lysis - indicating that cells did not need to be fully intact in order to produce immune effects. Dr. Lawrence went on to discover that only the factors less than 8000 Daltons were required to transfer this immunity; he termed these to be "transfer factors".
The history of cellular derived transfer factor as a treatment effectively ended in the early 1980s. While the research world was initially excited by the discovery of Dr Lawrence and the possibility that a small molecule could effect the immune system, the concept of small molecules having such profound biologic effect had not been proven. Despite several successes in using transfer factor to treat human disease and uncover immune effects, one then-prominent researcher was exposed for falsifying data related to his work on transfer factor and guinea pigs; effectively casting all of transfer factor science in a negative light. This scandal was followed shortly thereafter by the discovery of the Interleukin-1 alpha molecule and thus attention further shifted towards research on interleukins. By 1973, it was discovered that blood products could harbor viruses such as hepatitis A, indicating that transfer factor treatments derived from human or cow blood cells had the potential to transmit these diseases. With the eventual discovery of HIV/AIDS as an additional blood-borne disease most researchers viewed a product derived from blood as an unsafe treatment since screening for hepatitis B and HIV/AIDS would not be developed until after 1985. Some studies using transfer factor have been conducted after the discovery of HIV/AIDS, but almost all have been outside of the United States.
Read more about this topic: Transfer Factor
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