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Stray dogs are a potential source of rabies, so the Thomas Jefferson
University in Philadelphia suggests controlling the disease by immunising them.
But although oral vaccines, hidden in bait, protect foxes and raccoons from
rabies, they don’t work with dogs. The university thinks it has found an answer
(WO 01/70932). The trick is to take a weak strain of rabies virus and
genetically engineer it to make infected cells manufacture cytochrome C. Loose
in the cytoplasm, this protein makes the infected cells self-destruct and spill
their contents. TJU has discovered that, in turn, this stimulates an immune
response to the more dangerous, full-blown rabies virus. And dogs can take it
orally.