Publications by authors named "Chul Y Ahrens"
Article Synopsis
- An effective vaccine to prevent HIV transmission is still under development, and probiotic therapy has been proposed as a way to potentially boost immune responses during vaccination.
- In a study with rhesus macaques, researchers tested whether daily oral probiotics could enhance the effectiveness of SIV/HIV vaccines, but found no significant improvements in immune responses or protection against infection.
- The findings suggest that while probiotics are safe to use with SIV/HIV vaccinations, they did not enhance the vaccine’s effectiveness, indicating more research is needed to find better ways to leverage the microbiome for improving vaccine responses.
Gene Transfer in Adeno-Associated Virus Seropositive Rhesus Macaques Following Rapamycin Treatment and Subcutaneous Delivery of AAV6, but Not Retargeted AAV6 Vectors.
Hum Gene Ther
January 2021
Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors such as AAV6, which shows tropism for primary human CD4 T cells , are being explored for delivery of anti-HIV therapeutic modalities . However, pre-existing immunity and sequestration in nontarget organs can significantly hinder their performance. To overcome these challenges, we investigated whether immunosuppression would allow gene delivery by AAV6 or targeted AAV6 derivatives in seropositive rhesus macaques.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSimian-human immunodeficiency viruses (SHIVs) have been utilized to test vaccine efficacy and characterize mechanisms of viral transmission and pathogenesis. However, the majority of SHIVs currently available have significant limitations in that they were developed using sequences from chronically HIV-infected individuals or uncommon HIV subtypes or were optimized for the macaque model by serially passaging the engineered virus or Recently, a newly developed SHIV, SHIV.C.
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