Can recombinant DNA technology provide useful vaccines against viruses which induce heart disease?

In the panoply of armaments against viral infections, both drugs and vaccines have been employed. Numerous vaccines have enjoyed spectacular success in either eradicating or controlling various viral diseases, whereas there are still few, effective anti-viral drugs. Coxsackie B viruses are agents of human inflammatory heart disease and may trigger events leading to a failing heart. We believe that enteroviral heart disease could be controlled or eradicated through the use of vaccines, in much the same manner as poliovirus-induced poliomyelitis has been controlled through vaccination. We present here preliminary data which deal with an approach to the development of enterovirus vaccines and the use of a chimeric coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) vaccine in a murine model of CVB3-induced inflammatory heart disease.