Abstract
The HIV global pandemic continues to rage with over 33 million people living with the disease. Although multidrug therapy has improved the prognosis for those infected by the virus, it has not eradicated the infection. Immunological therapies, including therapeutic vaccines, are needed to supplement drug therapy in the search for a ‘functional cure’ for HIV. DermaVir (Genetic Immunity Kft, Budapest, Hungary and McLean, Virginia, USA), an experimental HIV/AIDS therapeutic vaccine, combines three key elements of rational therapeutic vaccine design: a single plasmid DNA (pDNA) immunogen expressing 15 HIV antigens, a synthetic pDNA nanomedicine formulation and a dendritic cell-targeting topical-vaccine administration. DermaVir’s novel mechanism of action, natural transport by epidermal Langerhans cells to the lymph nodes to express the pDNA-encoded HIV antigens and induce precursor/memory T cells with high proliferation capacity, has been consistently demonstrated in mouse, rabbit, primate and human subjects. Safety, immunogenicity and preliminary efficacy of DermaVir have been clinically demonstrated in HIV-infected human subjects. The DermaVir technology platform for dendritic cell-based therapeutic vaccination might offer a new treatment paradigm for cancer and infectious diseases.
Acknowledgements
We thank Michael Stevens for his invaluable contribution to the text and Sjlva Petrocchi for manuscript editing.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This work was supported by the Research Institute for Genetic and Human Therapy (RIGHT), the European Union FP6 Marie Curie Excellence Chair Programme and the Hungarian National Office for Research and Technology (NKTH; HIKC05 and DVCLIN01). The author is grateful to DAIDS, NIAID and the NIH for several preclinical and clinical studies. The author has stock ownership in Genetic Immunity LLC. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Notes
†Reverse transcription cannot occur due to deletion of the 3´ long terminal repeat.