Aids-Vaccine Battle

South Africa's battle against HIV/AIDS gains momentum.

Prospects for an AIDS vaccine.

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first identified at the end of 1981.1 In 1983, the causative virus, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1), was identified2, almost certainly having entered humans from a reservoir in chimpanzees, possibly on several occasions.3 Since 1981 the virus has spread to cause possibly the most serious epidemic infection in human history. The virus has divers...

Vaccine Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer: A Battle against Deadly Cancer

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest human malignancies and little progress has been achieved in its treatment over the past decades. Historically, chemotherapy or radiotherapy did not provide significant survival benefit in advanced pancreatic cancer. Thus, new therapeutic approaches are needed. As there is strong evidence that vaccine therapy against pancreatic cancer elicits antitumor i...

The Development of an AIDS Mucosal Vaccine

It is well known that mucosal tissues contain the largest surface area of the human body and are the front line of natural host defense against various pathogens. In fact, more than 80% of infectious disease pathogens probably gain entry into the susceptible human hosts through open mucosal surfaces. Human immunodeficiency virus type one (HIV-1), a mainly sexually transmitted virus, also primar...

Engineered Listeria monocytogenes as an AIDS vaccine.

Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) is an attractive vector to elicit T cell immunity because it infects antigen-presenting cells and because infection originates at the mucosa. Lm expressing HIV gag elicits sustained high levels of gag-specific CTL in mice. Since Lm causes disease in immunocompromised hosts, a highly attenuated strain of Lm that requires D-Ala for viability was produced. Attenuated ba...