Approaches to pandemic prevention - the chromatin vaccine.

Developing effective vaccines against viral infections have significant impacts on development, prosperity and well-being of human populations. Thus, successful vaccines such as smallpox and polio vaccines, have promoted global societal well-being. In contrast, ineffective vaccines may fuel arguments that retard scientific progress.

Systems Vaccinology in HIV Vaccine Development.

Themes of discussions in the Special Issue of T Cell Immunity and HIV-1 Pathogenicity are outlined here [...

HIV UTR, LTR, and Epigenetic Immunity.

The duel between humans and viruses is unending. In this review, we examine the HIV RNA in the form of un-translated terminal region (UTR), the viral DNA in the form of long terminal repeat (LTR), and the immunity of human DNA in a format of epigenetic regulation. We explore the ways in which the human immune responses to invading pathogenic viral nucleic acids can inhibit HIV infection, exemplified by a chromatin vaccine (cVaccine) to elicit the immunity of our genome-epigenetic immunity towards a cure.

Drug Resistance Mutations and Associated Phenotypes Detected in Clinical Trials of Maribavir for Treatment of Cytomegalovirus Infection.

Background: In separate phase 2 trials, 120 patients received maribavir for cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection failing conventional therapy (trial 202) and 119 received maribavir for asymptomatic infection (trial 203). Overall, 172 cleared their CMV infection (CMV DNA <200 copies/mL) within 6 weeks.

Methods: Baseline and posttreatment plasma samples were tested for mutations in viral genes UL97, UL54, and/or UL27.

Toward a Cure: Does Host Immunity Play a Role?

Three decades of research on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and AIDS reveal that the human body has developed through evolution a genome immune system embodying epigenetic regulation against pathogenic nucleic acid invasion. In HIV infection, this epigenetic regulation plays a cardinal role in HIV RNA production that silences HIV transcription at a molecular (RNA) level, controls viral load at a cellular (biological) level, and governs the viremic stage of AIDS at the clinical (patient) level. Even though the human genome is largely similar among humans and HIV is a single viral species, human hosts show significant differences in viral RNA levels, ranging from cell to organ to individual and expressed as elite controllers, posttreatment controllers, and patients with AIDS.