Some thoughts on this white paper, with the caveat that I'm not sure how much of what is discussed they have done and how much of it is what they are planning to do. The white paper is light on details and I re-iterate my appeal for them to release their data (at least in summary form). My apologies for some of the technical language--I want to write this first and then I can clarify the hard stuff (or you can google…
Hi there, Reid from Immunity Project. Thanks for the great question! Would love to talk with you off line about your research, by the way. 1. We have successfully gotten an immune response with memory (by elispot) after a single dose of the PLGA microspheres containing one or two peptides when combined with TLR-4 (MPLA) and TLR-9 (CpG) agonists. We used H2d restricted epitopes to do the study in C57BL/6 mice – this s…
Immunity Project – HIV Vaccine Development Program [pdf]
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Re: Immunity Project – HIV Vaccine Development Program [pdf]
#42I would be very curious to know if the team received any kind of pressure to stop what they're doing or if they will communicate if such thing would happen. Don't want to sound cynical, I just watched a lot on the subject recently and it seems there's a huge industry behind having a lot more benefits (material ones) from the actual sick people and their life-long expensive treatments compared to a vaccine. Even if it…
Re: Immunity Project – HIV Vaccine Development Program [pdf]
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi there, Reid from Immunity Project. Thanks for the great question! Would love to talk with you off line about your research, by the way. 1. We have successfully gotten an immune response with memory (by elispot) after a single dose of the PLGA microspheres containing one or two peptides when combined with TLR-4 (MPLA) and TLR-9 (CpG) agonists. We used H2d restricted epitopes to do the study in C57BL/6 mice – this s…
Hi Reid, as I said before, I wish you all the best but I simply don't understand how your experiment 2 is going to work. Did I understand correctly that you will immunize mice and then isolate CD4 T cells from the spleen. Then infect those cells and see if cells from immunized mice die slower/less/not at all and don't express p24 in high levels. I'm afraid this experiment will not work this way. CD4 T cells by itself…
A caveat is activation/co-stimulation. The CD8 T cells should already be activated due to the vaccination and no longer need co-stimulation from DCs... but this depends on the vaccine having delivered enough peptide to stimulate a true immune response in a human/humanized immune system. That's the (first) big unknown here.
Re: Immunity Project – HIV Vaccine Development Program [pdf]
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi Reid, as I said before, I wish you all the best but I simply don't understand how your experiment 2 is going to work. Did I understand correctly that you will immunize mice and then isolate CD4 T cells from the spleen. Then infect those cells and see if cells from immunized mice die slower/less/not at all and don't express p24 in high levels. I'm afraid this experiment will not work this way. CD4 T cells by itself…
I think that they will incubate CD8 and CD4 T cells from the same mouse together. The CD8 (cytotoxic) T cells, if they recognize the antigen, should kill the infected CD4 cells. A caveat is activation/co-stimulation. The CD8 T cells should already be activated due to the vaccination and no longer need co-stimulation from DCs... but this depends on the vaccine having delivered enough peptide to stimulate a true immune…
Re: Immunity Project – HIV Vaccine Development Program [pdf]
#45I would be very curious to know if the team received any kind of pressure to stop what they're doing or if they will communicate if such thing would happen. Don't want to sound cynical, I just watched a lot on the subject recently and it seems there's a huge industry behind having a lot more benefits (material ones) from the actual sick people and their life-long expensive treatments compared to a vaccine. Even if it…
I've heard lots of people speculating that the big pharma companies would be better of if there would always be HIV and they can sell their ART pills for live. But on the other hand if one of them is the first one to create a HIV immunization, this alone will make them so extremely rich. An effective HIV immunization will become standard immunization for all people in the western world and the WHO and UN will take al…
Re: Immunity Project – HIV Vaccine Development Program [pdf]
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait! But what HIV protein(s) is the peptide(s) derived from? Let's not overlook the decades of prior data! The field is littered with names like VRC01, Camelid and so many other players. I know, I know, antibodies all versus antigen in this case. But keep reading ... HIV is a master at developing resistant forms of itself. What if it changes the epitope and evades the vaccine induced antibody(ies), again!?! (Edit: D…
Hey shiven! Thanks for your question. This is Ian Cinnamon from the Immunity Project team. The targets we are trying to immunize with are believed to be beneficial by a statistical analysis similar to what is described here: Mothe B, Anuska L, Ibarrondo J, Daniels M, Miranda C, Zamarreno J, et al. Definition of the viral targets of protective HIV-1-specific T cell responses. Journal of Translational Medicine 2011;9(2…