HSV-2 Trivalent Vaccine

[JJ2017]

Hi all, 

just looking for clarification on HSV-2 Trivalent vaccine by Prof Friedman and led by Dr. Sita Awasthi from Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, i understood this vaccine was preventive and not therapeutic however the article below suggests otherwise. 

“If the vaccine behaves like this in people, it would limit lesions to appearing only about one day in 100, and the virus would be potentially contagious only about two in every 1,000 days,” Prof Friedman added.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/2656954/first-genital-herpes-vaccine-offers-powerful-protection-against-the-sti-and-could-stop-it-spreading/

[VVK]

In TLDR terms, yes the vaccine might have a therapeutic use once/if it makes it through the various stages of clinical testing. But its ultimate purpose is a preventative one, in the sense that it protects from infection and, failing that, diminishes symptoms of those that still get infected anyway.

 

I admire Journals that are free public access. Friedman published his work in PLOS Pathogens, which is one such journal. All the information can be found here:

http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006141

It's a very good read - especially for the Halford followers.

Basically this vaccine is preventative in the sense that it minimizes the impact of HSV infection... weird to think of it that way, I know, because you'd think that a preventative vaccine should be just that and prevent any sort of infection from happening. However, this isn't how the vaccine was tested since vaccinated animals were exposed to an HSV "challenge" (a ridiculously crazy high dose of HSV) and did get infected and showed symptoms (for perspective: all vaccinated animals survived the dose, but only 33% of unvaccinated animals survived). However, the symptoms were much diminished as opposed to those animals that did not have the vaccine. Here's an excerpt I found very interesting:

" As a marker of infection, we assayed dorsal root ganglia for HSV-2 DNA at the end of the experiment (≥ 60 days after infection). Among the eight mock immunized animals, only 3/8 had HSV-2 DNA detected, despite 7/8 developing genital lesions post-challenge. Among the 61 animals in the gD2, trivalent, or trivalent + gD2 immunization groups, only 2/61 had HSV-2 DNA, despite 24 animals developing genital lesions post-challenge. We generally detect a higher DNA copy number in ganglia and many more mock immunized animals have positive ganglia when samples are taken at earlier times post challenge, which suggests that HSV-2 DNA copy number in dorsal root ganglia may decline over time. "

 

[JJ2017]

12 hours ago, VVK said:

In TLDR terms, yes the vaccine might have a therapeutic use once/if it makes it through the various stages of clinical testing. But its ultimate purpose is a preventative one, in the sense that it protects from infection and, failing that, diminishes symptoms of those that still get infected anyway.

 

I admire Journals that are free public access. Friedman published his work in PLOS Pathogens, which is one such journal. All the information can be found here:

http://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006141

It's a very good read - especially for the Halford followers.

Basically this vaccine is preventative in the sense that it minimizes the impact of HSV infection... weird to think of it that way, I know, because you'd think that a preventative vaccine should be just that and prevent any sort of infection from happening. However, this isn't how the vaccine was tested since vaccinated animals were exposed to an HSV "challenge" (a ridiculously crazy high dose of HSV) and did get infected and showed symptoms (for perspective: all vaccinated animals survived the dose, but only 33% of unvaccinated animals survived). However, the symptoms were much diminished as opposed to those animals that did not have the vaccine. Here's an excerpt I found very interesting:

" As a marker of infection, we assayed dorsal root ganglia for HSV-2 DNA at the end of the experiment (≥ 60 days after infection). Among the eight mock immunized animals, only 3/8 had HSV-2 DNA detected, despite 7/8 developing genital lesions post-challenge. Among the 61 animals in the gD2, trivalent, or trivalent + gD2 immunization groups, only 2/61 had HSV-2 DNA, despite 24 animals developing genital lesions post-challenge. We generally detect a higher DNA copy number in ganglia and many more mock immunized animals have positive ganglia when samples are taken at earlier times post challenge, which suggests that HSV-2 DNA copy number in dorsal root ganglia may decline over time. "

 

Thanks for getting back to me, your reply was very interesting and ill take time to read the full article. if DNA copy in ganglia decline over time would this suggest replication occurs else where perhaps outside the nerve system or the effect of the virus perhaps fade which main mean a vaccine could potentially be more effective in year 2-3-4-5 after 1st administration. i hope i dont have the wrong end of he stick here VVK. 

[mcmich]

Any way we can hire a lab to make this vaccine now? Since it is just viral glycoproteins should be safe. Worst case scenario is it would not be effective.