AUSTRALIAN researchers who wanted to create a contraceptive vaccine to
control mouse numbers almost created a monster in the process
(13 January, p 3).
The scientists at the CSIRO Wildlife Division and the Australian National
University, working in Canberra, modified a mousepox virus to include the gene
for a biologically active protein called interleukin 4, which can modulate
immune responses. To their surprise, all the mice died. Adding the gene had
turned a merely nasty virus into a deadly killer. I asked science minister Lord
Sainsbury to comment on this alarming news.
Sainsbury replied that in Britain, such work…
