Ineffectiveness of rabies vaccination alone for post-exposure protection against rabies infection in animal models.

Most reported vaccination failures among rabies-exposed patients were due to fail to timely co-administer rabies immunoglobulin (RIG). Considering that such protection failure might be caused by low antigen titers in the vaccine, scientists improved antigen titers to 4.0 IU or even higher, yet the failure remained.

Targeted Therapy of Hepatitis B Virus-Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Present and Future.

Cancer immunotherapy using a patient's own T cells redirected to recognize and kill tumor cells has achieved promising results in metastatic melanoma and leukemia. This technique involves harnessing a patient's T cells and then delivering a gene that encodes a new T cell receptor (TCR) or a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that allow the cells to recognize specific cancer antigens. The prospect of using engineered T cell therapy for persistent viral infections like hepatitis B virus (HBV) and their associated malignancies is promising.

A novel rabies vaccine based-on toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) agonist PIKA adjuvant exhibiting excellent safety and efficacy in animal studies.

Vaccination alone is not sufficiently effective to protect human from post-exposure rabies virus infection due to delayed generation of rabies virus neutralizing antibodies and weak cellular immunity. Therefore, it is vital to develop safer and more efficacious vaccine against rabies. PIKA, a stabilized chemical analog of double-stranded RNA that interacts with TLR3, was employed as adjuvant of rabies vaccine.

Adjuvant PIKA protects hepatoma cells from dengue virus infection by promoting a TBK-1-dependent innate immune response.

Our study presents a first investigation of the effect of the adjuvant PIKA on dengue virus (DENV) replication. PIKA pretreatment decreased the levels of DENV serotype 2 (DENV2) mRNA, protein and viral particles in the hepatoma cell line HepG2. Treatment with PIKA simultaneously with DENV2 infection, but not after infection, resulted in a protective effect.

PIKA as an adjuvant enhances specific humoral and cellular immune responses following the vaccination of mice with HBsAg plus PIKA.

An adjuvant is usually used to enhance the immune response induced by vaccines. The choice of adjuvant or immune enhancer determines the effectiveness of the immune response. Currently, aluminium (Alum, a generic term for salts of aluminium) is the only FDA-approved adjuvant.