Direct Lymph Node Vaccination of Lentivector/Prostate-Specific Antigen is Safe and Generates Tissue-Specific Responses in Rhesus Macaques.

Anti-cancer immunotherapy is emerging from a nadir and demonstrating tangible benefits to patients. A variety of approaches are now employed. We are invoking antigen (Ag)-specific responses through direct injections of recombinant lentivectors (LVs) that encode sequences for tumor-associated antigens into multiple lymph nodes to optimize immune presentation/stimulation.

Autologous transplantation of lentivector/acid ceramidase-transduced hematopoietic cells in nonhuman primates.

Farber disease is a rare lysosomal storage disorder (LSD) that manifests due to acid ceramidase (AC) deficiencies and ceramide accumulation. We present a preclinical gene therapy study for Farber disease employing a lentiviral vector (LV-huAC/huCD25) in three enzymatically normal nonhuman primates. Autologous, mobilized peripheral blood (PB) cells were transduced and infused into fully myelo-ablated recipients with tracking for at least 1 year.

In-depth proteomic analyses of direct expressed prostatic secretions.

It is expected that clinically obtainable fluids that are proximal to organs contain a repertoire of secreted proteins and shed cells reflective of the physiological state of that tissue and thus represent potential sources for biomarker discovery, investigation of tissue-specific biology, and assay development. The prostate gland secretes many proteins into a prostatic fluid that combines with seminal vesicle fluids to promote sperm activation and function. Proximal fluids of the prostate that can be collected clinically are seminal plasma and expressed prostatic secretion (EPS) fluids.