Saturday, August 03, 2019

Michel Revel : What It Takes to Save the World from MS

https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/interferon-story

To get a large enough supply of the interferon the team decided to use readily available young human tissue – foreskins from circumcised babies. At first the Jewish ritual circumcisers refused to let the scientists have the foreskins, which are normally buried, but a member of the group, Dr Dalia Gurari, happened to be the niece of the leader of a large Hassidic sect – the Lubavitcher Rebbe – and soon the lab had a steady supply to work with. Foreskin cell cultures turned out to be instrumental in the search for the Interferon beta gene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-Ap5lhvAo0

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