Revaccination could benefit HIV-infected children

HIV-infected children receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) may require revaccination to maintain immunity against preventable diseases. There remains no standard or official recommendation on revaccination of children receiving HAART, an effective intervention in reducing morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected children. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reviewed published data to assess these children’s immune responses to vaccines and found that most children treated with HAART remained susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases, but responded well to revaccination. Their review was published in the September issue of the Lancet Infectious Diseases.

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Vaccine has cut child cases of bacterial pneumonia, says study

The number of children admitted to English hospitals with bacterial pneumonia decreased by a fifth in the 2 years following the introduction of a vaccine to combat the disease

The number of children admitted to English hospitals with bacterial pneumonia decreased by a fifth in the two years following the introduction of a vaccine to combat the disease, according to a new study published today in the journal Thorax.

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Studies pinpoint key targets for MRSA vaccine

Two recent studies provide evidence for a new approach to vaccines to prevent infections caused by drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — better known as MRSA – the leading cause of skin and soft tissue, bloodstream and lung infections in the United States. One demonstrates a way to counteract the bacteria’s knack for evading the immune system. The other shows how to disrupt the germ’s tissue-damaging mechanism.

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‘Needle-free’ intervention as natural vaccine against malaria

Preventative treatment with affordable and safe antibiotics in people living in areas with intense malaria transmission has the potential to act as a ‘needle-free’ natural vaccine against malaria

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‘New’ human adenovirus may not make for good vaccines, after all

AdHu26 demonstrates same fault as previously studied vaccine vectors

In recent years, scientists have studied the possibility of using engineered human adenoviruses as vaccines against diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. In this approach, adenoviruses, which commonly cause respiratory-tract infections, are rendered relatively harmless before they are used as vectors to deliver genes from pathogens, which in turn stimulate the body to generate a protective immune response.

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Boosting the efficacy of anticancer vaccines

There are several challenges to be overcome if therapeutic anticancer vaccines, which are designed to boost the patient’s anticancer immune response, are to be successfully developed. For example, the viruses used to deliver the tumor protein to the patient’s immune system are themselves targeted by the patient’s immune system, inducing neutralizing and suppressive responses. But now, a team of researchers, led by Michael Morse, at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, has developed a way to overcome these neutralizing and suppressive responses by using an alphavirus packaged in virus-like replicon particles. Repeated administration of such particles carrying the tumor protein CEA to patients with metastatic cancer expressing CEA induced clinically relevant immune responses targeted to CEA. As the presence of such immune responses was associated with longer overall patient survival, the authors hope their approach might be of therapeutic use in many cancer settings. Read more

Alphavirus-based vaccine may slow some cancers

DURHAM, N.C. – An experimental vaccine based on a virus that causes encephalitis in the wild appears to block tumor growth in some cases of advanced cancer, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center. Scientists say the vaccine is able to stimulate an immune response, even in the face of profound immune system suppression, a condition most patients with advanced cancer experience.

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HPV vaccine gives prolonged protection against genital warts and low-grade pre-cancerous growths

Research: 4-year efficacy of prophylactic human papillomavirus quadrivalent vaccine against low grade cervical, vulvar and vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia and anogenital warts: Randomized controlled trial

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NIH scientists advance universal flu vaccine

A universal influenza vaccine—so-called because it could potentially provide protection from all flu strains for decades—may become a reality because of research led by scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.

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NIH-led scientists find antibodies that prevent most HIV strains from infecting human cells

Discovery to advance HIV vaccine design, antibody therapy for other diseases

Scientists have discovered two potent human antibodies that can stop more than 90 percent of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory, and have demonstrated how one of these disease-fighting proteins accomplishes this feat. According to the scientists, these antibodies could be used to design improved HIV vaccines, or could be further developed to prevent or treat HIV infection. Moreover, the method used to find these antibodies could be applied to isolate therapeutic antibodies for other infectious diseases as well.

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