The purpose of the study, published in the Journal of Virology, was to compare the efficacy of LC16m8 with that of its parent strain, the Lister strain of vaccinia, from which it was derived.
The paper also describes the genetic similarity of LC16m8 to the Lister strain of vaccinia virus. Because of these genetic similarities, and because the Lister strain was used successfully during the World Health Organization’s worldwide smallpox eradication campaign, researchers postulate that LC16m8 may provide similarly effective protection against a smallpox outbreak.
The paper was authored by Shigeru Morikawa, Tokuki Sakiyama, Hideki Hasegawa and colleagues at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and the National Cancer Center Research Institute in Japan.