SV40

SV40 stands for Simian Virus 40, named because it was the 40th virus to be discovered in a simian (monkey) family of viruses. What makes it special is that it can transform regular cells into cancer cells. The official name for these kinds of viruses is an oncovirus. "Onco" is Greek for "a lump," which refers to a tumor. SV40 uses the perturbation of the retinoblastoma (pRB) and p53 tumor suppresent proteins to transform cells.

SV40 has been involved in a couple medical blunders. The first was when a polio vaccine produced between 1955 and 1961 by American Home Products was found to be contaminated with SV40, after having contaminated millions. The second was in 1971. Paul Berg, a Nobel Prizewinner, decided that if he cut up some of SV40's DNA and inserted some of the fragments into some E. coli bacteria DNA, he would be able to isolate the genes that caused cancer. His assistant, Janet Mertz, mentioned this experiment at a genetic engineering conference. Her colleagues were horrified. They told her that if the E. coli from the experiment escaped, the SV40 would be replicating with the E. coli. Paul Berg immediately called off the experiment.

An SV40 Virus

Bibliography

Wikipedia. "SV40." Wikipedia. 23 March 2013. Wikipedia. 23 March 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SV40>

Youngson, Robert. Scientific Blunders. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, Inc., 1998.