Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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HIV vaccine research

Signature of success for an HIV vaccine?

Efforts to produce a vaccine against HIV/AIDS have been sustained for more than a decade by a single, modest success: the RV144 clinical trial in Thailand, whose results were reported in 2009.

Now Emory, Harvard and Case Western Reserve scientists have identified a gene activity signature that may explain why the vaccine regimen in the RV144 study was protective in some individuals, while other HIV vaccine studies were not successful.

The researchers think that this signature, observed in immune cells in the blood after vaccination, could be used to design future vaccines that will have a better chance of providing protection against HIV infection.

“We may not need to take ‘shots in the dark’, when testing vaccine platforms or adjuvants for efficacy,” says senior author Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, PhD. “Instead, we can now identify adjuvants and/or vaccine regimens which more potently induce the activation of this signature.”

Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, PhD

The results, published this week in Nature Immunology, also contain hints on a contributing factor explaining why a recent HIV vaccine study conducted in South Africa (HVTN702) did not show a protective effect. HVTN702 was designed as a follow-up to RV144, but multiple parameters were different between the Thai and South African vaccine studies, such as the demographics of the participants, the adjuvant used, and the levels and varieties of HIV circulating.

“Our findings highlight one potential mechanism which may have contributed to the muted efficacy of HVTN702,” says Sekaly, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar.

This mechanism involves the choice of adjuvant, a vaccine additive that enhances immune responses. While RV144 used the adjuvant alum (aluminum hydroxide), HVTN702 used the oil-based adjuvant MF59, also found in some influenza vaccines, to stimulate higher antibody production.

“There are multiple ways that a vaccine can promote protection and some of these do not involve antibodies,” Sekaly says. “Since MF59 failed to potently induce the gene signature we found to be associated with protection, this signature could guide us to mechanisms distinct from antibodies which could trigger protection from HIV-1.”

Read more

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

Strengthening community engagement in HIV vaccine research

Paula Frew, PhD

The scientific part of the AIDS Vaccine 2010 meeting began Tuesday evening with an exciting summary of issues facing the field from NIAID director Tony Fauci. But before that, participants in this year’s conference got a chance to warm up with several “satellite sessions.”

One of them, “Effective Community Engagement in HIV Vaccine Research Among Communities and Researchers,” was organized by Paula Frew, PhD, director of health communications and applied community research at Emory’s Hope Clinic.

Two prominent themes emerged from this session. The first was that community members should be involved in clinical trials at every step of the process: from design and recruitment to dissemination of results.

“In the past, scientists often came to the community late in the process, after a protocol for a study was already approved, and said: “Will you support what we’ve already decided?” said Steve Wakefield of HIV Vaccine Trials Network. “This doesn’t work.”

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and AVAC presented proposed guidelines for “good participatory practice,” analogous to good clinical practices.

Another theme that emerged from the satellite session was the search for more flexible “adaptive” clinical trial formats. Glenda Gray from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand emphasized that adaptive trials could be faster and avoid enrollment of large numbers of patients unnecessarily.

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment

AIDS Vaccine 2010 conference brings global research focus to Atlanta

This week’s AIDS Vaccine 2010 conference, Sept. 28-Oct. 1, is underway at Atlanta’s Omni Hotel. Under the auspices of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, the international meeting is hosted by the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR).

Over 1,100 scientists, advocates, funders, and policy makers are attending 500 sessions about scientific discoveries and future directions for developing an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine. This goal is considered critical in fighting the ongoing epidemic, which newly infects 50,000 people each week around the world.

Emory HIV/AIDS researchers are playing a significant role in the meeting. The four co-chairs are Eric Hunter, PhD, co-director of the Emory CFAR; James Curran, MD, MPH, dean of Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health and co-director of the CFAR; Carlos del Rio, MD, chair of the Hubert Department of Global Health and co-chair of the CFAR; and Harriet Robinson, PhD, formerly of Yerkes Primate Center and Emory Vaccine Center and now at GeoVax, Inc.

Hunter led the opening press conference and opening session on Tuesday afternoon.

A fellowship program hosted 21 journalists from media outlets around the world.

Alan Bernstein, executive director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, emphasized the need to build a bridge between basic science and clinical research. On Wednesday, Bernstein will talk about the Enterprise’s new strategic plan for an HIV vaccine.

Dazon Dixon Diallo, director of the African-American women’s organization Sisterlove, noted that the South has been particularly hard hit by the AIDS epidemic, with over half the HIV cases in the United States. The human rights dimensions of the disease are enormous, she said, and engagement with community partners is essential in fighting HIV. Researchers need to solve the problem with the help of people who know the most about it.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the NIH, said that even though the road to an HIV vaccine has been a rocky one over the past 23 years, the limited success reported last year with the RV144 trial was the first signal that it is possible for a vaccine to block HIV acquisition, a finding that has re-energized the vaccine community.

Future directions for HIV vaccine research, said Fauci, will include research that builds on insights from the success of RV144, multiple clinical trials conducted as scientific tools and not just all-or-nothing aims for vaccine licensing, more research into the early events of HIV infection that could provide targets for vaccines, and new structure-based vaccines using newly discovered neutralizing antibodies.

“I don’t think there is any question we are going to get there,” said Fauci. “The light at the end of the tunnel is the science we are now implementing.”

Press conferences are streamed live and available for playback at the conference website:

For more information on Emory’s role in the conference and Emory HIV/AIDS research, including video, see the website.

Posted on September 28, 2010 by admin in Immunology Leave a comment