Does anybody hear about GX-12, a HIV Therapeutic Vaccine?

[hahaha]

Just read about the following article and wonder if anybody hear of it.

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Safety Evaluation of GX-12, a New HIV Therapeutic Vaccine: Investigation of Integration into the Host Genome and Expression in the Reproductive Organs
Kyung Koo Kang, Seul Min Choi, Jae Hoon Choi, Dong Sup Lee, Chae Young Kim, Byung Ok Ahn, Byung Moon Kim, Won Bae Kim

Research Laboratories, Dong-A Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Yongin-shi, Kyunggi-do, Korea
Intervirology 2003;46:270-276 (DOI: 10.1159/000073206)
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  Abstract

AIDS is one of the greatest infectious disease threats to human health despite the extensive efforts made since the discovery of HIV in 1983. The use of plasmid DNA vaccination to elicit humoral and cell-mediated immune responses against HIV infection has produced promising results in animal and in human trials. However, there are several safety concerns about the use of a DNA vaccine, which include the possibility of integration into the host genome, adverse immunopathology, and anti-DNA autoantibody induction. In this study, we examined the potential integration and distribution of GX-12, a new therapeutic vaccine for HIV infection, at various times in muscles and reproductive organs of rats. Animals of both sexes were injected with GX-12 at the dose of 400 µg/animal i.m. once a week for 4 weeks, and host genome integration and tissue distribution were examined on day 1, 5, 15, 30 and 45 days after the final injection. A PCR-based assay revealed that GX-12 was not integrated into the host genome, nor expressed in reproductive organs at any time. These findings suggest that the risk of mutation or germline transmission due to GX-12 injection is negligible.

Copyright © 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel

[J220]

Never heard of this one, but these good news, small steps as they may be, are always welcome!

[bimazek]

i dont know alot about this in particular HIV Therapeutic Vaccine but i know that the concept of DNA vaccines are very very hot and big deal, because

apparently, the squiggly proteins that are dna are very hard to even inject into the body as a vaccine they get destroyed or deformed or something so they are not effective, but Merck just bought the rights for a new way to shoot the DNA vaccine into the human body with an electric pore blast, kind of an electric blip that takes the fragile DNA and the protein shapes that are actually the DNA thru the skin into the body to be encountered by the immune system intact, so this whole dna vaccine thing is going to be big according to merck in hiv, cancer and other areas according to a press release.