CTL-Based Vaccines: Evidence for Efficacy in Animal Models and Humans
Jaap Goudsmit, Johannes Antonie Bogaards and Marc Girard
from: AIDS Vaccine Development: Challenges and Opportunities (Edited by: Wayne Koff, Patricia Kahn and Ian D. Gust). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2007)
Abstract
Nearly all candidate AIDS vaccines now in clinical development are designed to stimulate the cellular arm of the immune system, in particular the CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell compartments. Accumulated evidence suggests that these responses will not prevent infection with HIV but may suppress viral replication once infection has occurred, in turn delaying progression to clinical AIDS. In this article we review some of the data from the rhesus macaque/SIV/SHIV model and from natural history studies of HIV-infected people, and discuss how useful CTL-based vaccines are likely to be. Key uncertainties include the longevity of protection by, and the likelihood of viral escape from, HIV-specific CTLs. From the data available we predict that effective suppression of viral load can provide significant clinical and public health benefits, if an even modestly effective CTL-based vaccine is made available as early as possible read more ...
