Professor at Medical School Studies Herpes Virus Drug

Several researchers at Harvard affiliated Beth Israel in Boston are working to develop a drug effective in the treatment of cold sores and other viral infections of the herpes variety.

Dr. Clyde S. Crumpacker II, assistant professor of Medicine at the Medical School, and his colleagues at the hospital who are studying the effects of the drug acyclovir on cold sores, said yesterday they will administer the drug in ointment form to 50 of the 100 volunteers. The other 50 will receive a placebo or dummy drug that does not contain the anti-viral agent found in acyclovir.

Although the drug has already been tested on animals, the study represents a first-time observation of the disease in humans in a controlled, "double-blind" way, Crumpacker said.

Of the five types of herpes viruses, the Beth Israel research is focused on the type called herpes simplex 1, Most people have been exposed to the virus; "by the age of 15, 90 per cent of us have been infected by this virus," Crumpacker said.

"Almost everyone has a primary infection without symptoms," Dr. Kenneth Arndt, associate professor of Dermatology at Beth Israel, said, adding the infection later reappears as a cold sore."

"This is the first time there's been such a promising agent that inhibits the virus without doing harm to other cells," Crumpacker said.

"It really should be entirely safe," Arndt added.

The herpes simplex 1 virus lies dormant in nerve tissue until reactivated by any of a number of reasons--among them exposure to sun, stress, fever and colds.

If acyclovir is proven effective in treating simplex 1 type herpes, it may be effective in treating herpes simplex 11, also known as genital herpes.

Although there is no direct evidence that a virus causes cancer, there is evidence of herpes virus in cancer patients, specifically in cervical cancer patients, Crumpacker said