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HIV/AIDS Vaccine Developed at The University of Western Ont.


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HIV/AIDS Vaccine Developed at The University of Western Ontario Proceeding to Human Clinical Trials

 

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

 

The first and only preventative HIV vaccine based on a genetically modified killed whole virus has received approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to start human clinical trials. Developed by Dr. Chil-Yong Kang and his team at The University of Western Ontario, with the support of Sumagen Canada, the vaccine (SAV001) holds tremendous promise, having already proven to stimulate strong immune responses in preliminary toxicology tests with no adverse effects or safety risks. It is the only HIV vaccine currently under development in Canada, and one of only a few in the world.

 

 

 

“FDA approval for human clinical trials is an extremely significant milestone for our vaccine, which has the potential to save the lives of millions of people around the world by preventing HIV infection," says Kang, a researcher and professor at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. Western President Amit Chakma says, "This joint venture between Sumagen and Western is a prime example of what collaboration between private industry and university researchers can achieve. Dr. Kang and his team are to be commended for their exceptional talent and remarkable persistence in developing a vaccine that addresses a tragic health crisis affecting millions of people around the globe." Dr. Dong Joon Kim, a representative of Sumagen Co. Ltd. says, “Our company has committed substantial resources to this project since 2005 and we are very pleased to reach this milestone. It is our desire to continue growing our business in Canada and being a part of the business community in London.”

 

 

 

HIV/AIDS has killed more than 28 million people worldwide, and more than 35 million people currently live with the virus infection. Since the virus was characterized in 1983, there have been numerous trials through pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions around the world to develop vaccines; however, no commercialized vaccine has been developed to date. Other HIV vaccines evaluated through human clinical trials have focused on either one specific component of HIV as an antigen, genetic vaccine using recombinant DNA, or recombinant viruses carrying the HIV genes. Kang’s vaccine is unique in that it uses a killed whole HIV-1, much like the killed whole virus vaccines for polio, influenza, rabies and hepatitis A. The HIV-1 is genetically engineered so it is non-pathogenic and can be produced in large quantities.

 

 

 

Before it can be commercialized, the SAV001 vaccine must go through three phases of human clinical trials:

 

Phase I, set to begin in January 2012, will double check the safety of the vaccine in humans, involving only 40 HIV-positive volunteers.

Phase II will measure immune responses in humans, involving approximately 600 HIV-negative volunteers who are in the high-risk category for HIV infection.

Phase III will measure the efficacy of the vaccine, involving approximately 6,000 HIV-negative volunteers who are also in the high-risk category for HIV infection.

 

 

 

Through WORLDiscoveries, Western’s technology transfer office, Sumagen Canada has secured patents for the SAV001 vaccine in more than 70 countries, including the U.S., the European Union, China, India and South Korea. The vaccine has been manufactured at a bio-safety level 3 (BSL3) good manufacturing practice (GMP) facility in the U.S.

 

 

 

About Sumagen Canada - Located in The Stiller Centre for Technology Commercialization in Western’s Research Park in London, Ontario, Sumagen Canada was established in 2008 specifically to manage and support clinical development of Kang’s vaccine. Sumagen Canada is a subsidiary of Sumagen Co. Ltd., a Korean-based pharmaceutical venture company.

 

 

link

https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/schulich...iphone&_ft_c=m

 

INb4pplstartrawdawginhookerswithonlyfearofherpes.

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We can't keep our population under control as is not sure if the planet can handle even more people living/longer. But obviously this is a great stride in the medical world, and obviously if it affected me closier I would be "OMG" about it.
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http://gizmodo.com/5713498/man-officially-cured-of-hiv

 

Man Officially Cured of HIV

For the first time, a man has been declared officially cured of HIV. The remedy may nearly have killed him, but it opens a door—just a crack—to hope that we may someday kill off the scourge for good.

 

Strangely enough, the diagnosis that most concerned Timothy Ray Brown in 2007 was acute myeloid leukemia. HIV has been increasingly thought of as a manageable disease, though certainly a terribly burdensome one. What brought the 42-year old Brown under the care of Germany's Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin hospital was the more immediate threat his cancer posed.

 

The treatment Brown underwent was aggressive: chemotherapy that destroyed the majority of his immune cells. Total body irradiation. Finally, a risky stem-cell transplant that nearly a third of patients don't survive—but that appears to have completely cured Brown of HIV.

 

Doctors were savvy when they chose a stem cell donor for Brown. The man whose bone marrow they used has a particular genetic mutation, present in an incredibly small percentage of people, that makes him almost invulnerable to HIV. With Brown's own defenses decimated by treatments, the healthy, HIV-resistant donor cells repopulated his immune system. The initial indications that the virus had abated were promising. But only just now, having taken no antiretroviral drugs since the transplant, and following extensive testing shows no signs whatsoever of HIV, have his doctors given the official word:

 

He's cured.

 

What does this mean for the future of treatment? It's not as though every HIV patient can or would want to go through the tremendous suffering that was prelude to Brown's recovery, or be able to afford the procedure if they could or did. But for the first time, we know that HIV can be cured, not just managed. It opens new avenues of research—gene therapy, stem cell treatments—that may otherwise have been thought dead ends.

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Just happy to see this because Africa is going to be a future combat problem. The AIDs too common there. This is pretty amazing.

 

Hmmm, almost addressed this in the other thread. It's sad it's such a foregone conclusion we are going there. We really need to rethink our foreign policy of conquer and command.

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We can't keep our population under control as is not sure if the planet can handle even more people living/longer. But obviously this is a great stride in the medical world, and obviously if it affected me closier I would be "OMG" about it.

 

Hate to say this but the world will just make something worse and harder to fix to cure its human outbreak.

 

I could not agree more. We can try all we want but Mother Nature is a bitch.

 

And don’t get me started on warning labels if your dumb enough to stick your hand under a running lawn mower than you don’t deserve to breathe

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All the time and money the government spent into creating this devious "Hitler of the blacks and gays" and your telling me a vaccine has been approved for use. Next your gonna tell me they found a non addictive form of crack http://www.cr-h.net/banners/smilies/Dumb.png
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All the time and money the government spent into creating this devious "Hitler of the blacks and gays" and your telling me a vaccine has been approved for use. Next your gonna tell me they found a non addictive form of crack http://www.cr-h.net/banners/smilies/Dumb.png

 

Imagine that, another idiot who's post I will no longer read on CR. :dumb:

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