Optimization Of HIV Specific Immune Responses In Vivo

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Abstract

Successful development of a vaccine against HIV will likely require the induction of both antibody and/or cellular immune responses sufficient to prevent infection or disease respectively following infectious challenge. While the induction of antibody responses for a variety of other infectious pathogens is readily achieved by a variety of vaccine formulations, live attenuated, recombinant viral vaccines or plasmid DNA vaccines only induce the induction of long-lived cellular immune responses, particularly CD8+ T cell responses. Moreover, since live attenuated HIV vaccines might be precluded from use due to safety concerns and DNA vaccines at present only induce modest CD8+ T cell responses in humans, there is an urgent need to develop ways to enhance the generation and maintenance of CD8+ T cell responses in humans in following immunization. This study focuses on how to optimize the magnitude and duration of CD8+ T cell responses following vaccination in rodents and primates using a variety of vaccine formulations.