My first interferon publication in 1960 was followed by many other studies, some authored jointly with colleagues from the Bratislava Institute of Virology. Over the years I have enjoyed playing the role of a scientific iconoclast. According to the then-current dogma, mice that recover from infection with Sindbis virus, another encephalitis-causing virus, should have had higher levels of interferon in their brains than mice that succumb to infection, but what I found was the exact opposite. My findings were printed in Virology, a widely circulated journal published in the US. Later studies by Ion Gresser and other investigators demonstrated that interferon production, while protective and beneficial under many circumstances, could also be harmful.
Another study done jointly with my first and only graduate student in Bratislava, Daniel Stanček, showed that even though interferon could protect cells from an ensuing TBE virus infection, the addition of interferon after cells had become fully infected failed to suppress TBE virus multiplication. This was an early demonstration of the now widely known fact that in order to become successful pathogens, many viruses developed the capacity to counteract the ability of interferon to inhibit virus infections.
These publications led to many contacts with scientists in other parts of the world who had begun to study interferon at about the same time. Apart from Alick Isaacs’s laboratory in London, an active center of interferon research emerged in Belgium at the Catholic University of Leuven. Jean Lindenmann, coauthor of the original publications describing interferon, had returned from Alick’s lab in London to the University of Zurich, and though not planning to continue interferon research, he soon reemerged as an active contributor to the field.
Other laboratories active in interferon research in the early 1960s were at Harvard University Medical School in Boston, the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Cornell University Medical College in New York City, and in Villejuif, outside Paris. I exchanged correspondence with many colleagues from these institutions and some, including Jean Lindenmann, and Robert Wagner from Johns Hopkins University, I met in person during their visits to the Institute of Virology in Bratislava. A field of interferon research, somewhat separate from the rest of virology, was gradually forming.
In the fall of 1962, the authorities granted me a two-week study trip to Belgium and England. The barrier between East and West in those days was formidable. There were only two passengers on the spacious Czechoslovak Airlines plane during my trip from Prague to Brussels: an employee of the Czech embassy and me. My first stop was Leuven (then still known to the outside world as Louvain). The charismatic director of the Rega Institute, Pieter De Somer, already in those days had the idea—or shall we say, dream—to develop interferon production commercially. In this and other ways Pieter De Somer was clearly ahead of his time.
In Leuven I stayed at the house of Edward De Maeyer and Jaqueline De Maeyer-Guignard—marking the beginning of a wonderful friendship between us that flourished till their passing some years ago. At the time, the De Maeyers were relatively new to the Rega Institute, having returned to Belgium as newlyweds after completing their fellowships in the United States. Edward became interested in interferon during the final stage of his sojourn at Harvard University in the laboratory of John Enders, a Nobel Prize winner and pioneer of modern virological research. In 1962, Edward was already a driving force on De Somer’s interferon team. His Swiss-French wife, Jaqueline, trained as a pediatric endocrinologist, was now working alongside Edward in interferon research.
From Belgium I continued on to London where I spent several exciting days at the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill on the outskirts of London. Most memorable was the time spent with Alick Isaacs, whom I had not seen since his visit in Bratislava in 1957. I was introduced to Alick’s colleagues whose names I knew from publications, including Derek Burke, Joyce Taylor, David Tyrrell, and Tony Allison. Being in a major metropolis in the free world for the first time was an overwhelming experience. This is what I said as an introduction to my seminar at Mill Hill: “I feel like a country vicar who comes to Rome to lecture about the Bible to the pope and his cardinals.”
At the end of my stay in London, while saying goodbye to me, Alick asked whether I would be interested in spending a year in his laboratory as a visiting fellow. They had some funds, he said, to pay me a stipend. This was a fantastic offer and I had great difficulty suppressing my excitement. The Mill Hill institute was a major center of medical research and Alick was a leading figure in the world of virology. In Bratislava I was the only person focusing on interferon and there were few people I could ask for advice. In London I would have the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from many others working in the field. It would be a life-changing experience!
But right away I realized that it would be hard to obtain approval from the authorities in Czechoslovakia. There were some other people at the Institute of Virology who had been permitted to spend up to one year in Western countries, but all of them were more senior than I. The fact that I was not a member of the Communist Party and—in the official parlance—“politically passive” would not be helpful either.
My fears were well-founded. Director Blaškovič was mildly supportive, but said right away that my stay abroad would have to be sanctioned by the local branch of the Communist Party. The denial of my request arrived rather promptly. I was told that there were other comrades at the institute more senior and more in need of advanced training, and they had to be given priority. The Communist Party bosses ignored the fact that I was the only person offered the opportunity to spend time in Isaacs’s laboratory and no one else could take my place there.
When I returned to Bratislava from my short trip to Belgium and the UK, I suggested to Director Blaškovič that we organize an international meeting devoted to interferon. Interferon research was just beginning to emerge as a separate discipline, but I was confident that with my newly established contacts we could attract enough participants to what was to be the first international gathering of interferon experts. Blaškovič, who always sought greater visibility for himself and his institute, liked the idea.
And so, in September 1964, the Institute of Virology sponsored the first international conference on interferon, held near Bratislava at the Smolenice Castle, an imposing neo-Gothic edifice built just before the outbreak of World War I by Count Pálffy, a wealthy Hungarian aristocrat, as a family residence; it was later confiscated by the Czechoslovak government and converted into a conference center for the Academy of Sciences. I acted as the scientific secretary of the conference, and was instrumental in the planning of the sessions.
Interferon research was still a very small field and probably half of the world’s then-active investigators participated. Alick Isaacs was scheduled to give the opening lecture. Unfortunately, Alick became ill and could not come. (His illness marked the beginning of a string of serious health problems that ended with his premature death a few years later.) However, two of his colleagues from Mill Hill, Tony Allison and Joseph Sonnabend, did participate. The very active interferon group from the University of Leuven was represented by Pieter De Somer, Edward De Maeyer, and Jaqueline De Maeyer-Guignard. Participants from the United States included Sam Baron, Robert Friedman, Kurt Paucker, Thomas Merigan, and Edwin Kilbourne—all to become prominent in interferon research. From France came André Lwoff, the Nobel Prize winner who was then interested in host defense mechanisms to virus infections. Another participant was Kari Cantell from Finland, who would later become a pioneer in the clinical use of interferon. There were many attendees from Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and other Communist bloc countries.
One evening, conference participants gathered to play a social game. A moment that has stayed with me in particular was when Pieter De Somer (later to become president of Leuven University) answered the question: “What would you do if you were to discover an effective cure for virus infections?” “I would sell it,” he said without hesitation. This moment may well have marked the conceptual birth of commercial biotechnology as we know it today.
An unavoidable fact of life in all East Bloc countries was the ubiquitous presence of the secret police—KGB in the Soviet Union, Stasi in East Germany, and Štátna bezpečnosť or ŠtB (pronounced esh-tay-bay) in Czechoslovakia.
I had my first serious encounter with the ŠtB when I was a medical student. In her ophthalmology office, my mother worked with a nurse whose husband happened to be a ŠtB operative. One day the nurse told my mother that her husband’s organization was keeping an eye on my mother’s internist colleague Dr. Bučko, who had his office in the same ambulatory care center as my mother, because Dr. Bučko often made remarks that were hostile to the Socialist system. My mother casually mentioned this conversation to me over the dinner table. Dr. Bučko’s son, nicknamed Fero, happened to be my classmate in medical school. Without informing my mother, the next day when I saw Fero I told him what I had learned from my mother and suggested that he advise his father to be more careful about what he was saying in public about the regime.
I am not sure what happened next, but perhaps Dr. Bučko, instead of heeding my advice, went to complain to the authorities that they were spreading false rumors about him. In any case, I soon received a subpoena to appear at the notorious building housing the ŠtB headquarters on the outskirts of Bratislava. The ŠtB agent who interrogated me was not friendly. He wanted to know exactly what I had said to my classmate and why and how and when I received the information. I was forced to reveal that I heard it first from my mother. My mother was called in next and asked similar questions. Afterward, they called me in once again. With a stern expression on his face, the ŠtB agent told me that they were letting me go this time, but should I be called in again, things would become much more serious.
Another encounter with the ŠtB happened shortly after the defection of my friend Bobby Lamberg, when I was already working at the Institute of Virology. Once again I received a subpoena, although this time I was to appear not at the ŠtB headquarters but at the main police office building—which happened to be the same building where my father was jailed for a few days during World War II. I had no idea why I was called in, but as I was waiting outside the office a young man came out whom I recognized as a close friend of Bobby’s. I was called in next.
There were two men interrogating me. I could truthfully tell them that I knew nothing about Bobby’s plans to defect. It would be rare even for very close friends to discuss plans of defection. It was too dangerous for two reasons. First, if the plans were to somehow leak out, the would-be defector would end up in jail instead of in exile. Second, when friends who stayed behind were questioned by the ŠtB, not knowing about the plans was safer. The ŠtB agents kept asking me questions about how closely I knew Bobby, about his political views, and about what other friends of his I knew. They were mildly intimidating. Fortunately Bobby had moved to Prague some years earlier, and I could say that I had not had close contact with him since then. (This was not the complete truth because I would always meet Bobby during my frequent visits to Prague.)
I also remember that I was called in by the ŠtB after my return from the trip to Belgium and the UK. The person who met me introduced himself as “Mráz” (“Frost” in Slovak), which almost certainly was not his real last name, but it matched his glacial expression. I was first reminded of how privileged I was to have received the permission to travel to the West. (The clear implication was, you’d better be cooperative or else you will not be allowed to travel again.) They asked me for the names of everyone I met during my trip and what their positions were. Did I discuss politics with anyone? (I did not, I said.) Did I meet any Czech or Slovak defectors? (I did not.) Did anyone try to talk me into defecting or recruit me to become a spy for the West? (Nobody did.)
Some months later I was confronted with an even more difficult situation. I was called to the ŠtB and met once again by Mr. Mráz. He started out in a friendly tone, telling me that he knew I was a loyal citizen and a respected scientist. He went on to note that I was fluent in English, and that he wanted to ask of me a favor. A scientist from the US was scheduled to visit another Academy Institute. They would arrange for me to be introduced to the visiting scientist from America, and I would then be expected to spend some time engaging him in a conversation and perhaps invite him for a drink. At some point I would introduce him to another person designated by Mr. Mráz, and this other person would then invite the American scientist to join him on a deer hunt. That was all I would have to do, said Mráz.
As I listened to Mr. Mráz explaining his plan, I became increasingly alarmed. I knew that refusing to cooperate could come at a high cost. At the same time, I realized that if I did what Mráz asked me to do I would be forever obligated to carry out any dirty work the ŠtB asked of me. “Look,” I said, gathering all the strength I could muster, “I really cannot do what you are asking me to do. The American scientist would quickly figure out that I am doing this for the secret police and my reputation as a scientist would be ruined. I think I can be more useful to our country by continuing to do decent scientific work.” To my surprise, Mráz did not insist. I was fortunate, but how much longer could I resist entreaties by the ŠtB?
There was another, strictly confidential item on my agenda at the Smolenice interferon meeting. By now I was married. Some weeks before the meeting, my wife Marica and I had played hosts to a colleague from Vienna, professor Hans Moritsch, head of the Department of Hygiene and Microbiology at the Vienna Medical School, and his wife Edda, who stayed with us in our home in Bratislava and then extended an invitation for us to spend a weekend with them in Vienna. We explained that it was unlikely the authorities would grant us permission. In the rare instances when someone was allowed to travel to a Western country, common practice in the Eastern Bloc was to ensure that a spouse or a child was kept behind so as to make defection unlikely. As we had no children, we thought the secret police would consider it too risky to permit Marica and me to visit Vienna together.
Nevertheless, we asked the Moritsches to mail us a written invitation so that we could submit an application and hope for a miracle. The invitation from the Moritsches to visit them for a weekend arrived, and a few days before the opening of the Smolenice conference, Marica and I submitted our applications for a travel permit.
There was something we did not mention to the Moritsches at the time. Ever since getting married two years earlier, Marica and I often discussed the idea of moving to the US where Marica’s older brother lived and worked as a physician. Since getting a permission to emigrate from Czechoslovakia to a Western country was impossible for people of our generation, we came to an agreement that if the opportunity arose, we would defect.
I knew that if we defected, I would need help to find a job. I had to decide who among the Western colleagues I knew would be trustworthy enough to be told in confidence about our plans. As the conference approached, I decided that it would be Edward and Jaqueline De Maeyer, with whom I had developed a friendship during my visit to Leuven when I had stayed in their house.
Since I suspected that the walls of the Smolenice Castle were bugged, I told Edward and Jaqueline about our secret plans during a walk in the surrounding gardens. If Marica and I were to get to Vienna, would they be in a position to find me a temporary position at their institute in Leuven? We knew that if we were able to get out of the country, we would want to settle in the US, but we had no idea how long it would take us to get American immigration visas, and we would need a home in the interim. Edward offered to consult in confidence with their influential director, De Somer, who happened to be in Smolenice too.
Soon Edward and I took another walk through the gardens during which he told me that De Somer promised to do his best for us, but he needed more time to determine if he could find the necessary resources to offer me a job. Okay, but how would Edward let me know whether I could count on getting a position in Leuven? We came up with our own John le Carré–style code: If De Somer told Edward that there was a position available for me, Edward would mail me a preprinted postcard requesting a copy of my latest scientific publication. In the pre-Internet days such “reprint request cards” were being routinely exchanged among scientists all over the world, and addressing one to me would not arouse suspicion.
Then, in late September, we received the official permit authorizing Marica and me to travel to Austria. We were overcome with conflicting emotions: the great excitement that our desire to move to the West might become a reality, mixed with more somber thoughts having to do with leaving behind our families and friends and not knowing what we would be leaving them for. Would we have the courage to go through with it?