Isolation of a cDNA clone derived from a blood-borne non-A, non-B viral hepatitis genome.

In this paper Houghton and colleagues named  “hepatitis C” for the first time. They cloned and isolated the viral RNA genome and demonstrated that a patient who had high antibodies to a ‘native/wild strain’, reacted specifically with the cloned version. In “An assay for circulating antibodies to a major etiologic  virus of human non-A, non-B hepatitis,” Science, 244, 362-64, published immediately following in the same issue of Science, Alter and Houghton described the "diagnostic reagents to detect HCV’"mentioned in the first paper.

The discovery of Hepatitis C led to "the rapid development of diagnostic reagents to detect HCV in blood supplies which reduced the risk of acquiring HCV through blood transfusion from one in three to about one in two million. It is estimated that antibody testing has prevented at least 40,000 new infections per year in the US alone and many more worldwide" (Wikipedia article on Michael Houghton (virologist) accessed 5-2020). (Order of authorship in the original publication: Choo, Kuo,Weiner, Overby Bradley, Houghton.)

In 2020 Houghton shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice "for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus."

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for additional background on this paper.)