PROJECT
Activating Dendritic Cells to Improve
Anti-HIV Vaccines

Dendritic cells are white blood cells that coordinate the body’s immune responses against foreign pathogens. In general, vaccine efficacy can be increased by directly targeting the vaccine to properly activated dendritic cells, and it is this aspect of efficacy that must be applied to research on HIV vaccines. An additional complexity of HIV infection is that HIV exploits dendritic cells, ultimately subverting the activation of effective immune responses and establishing infection. Thus, research must identify ways to improve the immunity induced against HIV infection to advance potential dendritic cell–based anti-HIV vaccine strategies.

This objective is being tackled through in vitro and in vivo assays to explore how to more effectively activate the dendritic cell system through specific stimuli, so that dendritic cells then stimulate stronger T- and B-cell responses in vivo. Stimuli being examined include immunostimulatory DNAs and RNAs that activate specific dendritic cell subsets, increasing the dendritic cell’s ability to activate innate and adaptive immunity. These stimuli are being examined in vivo for their ability to augment preventive and therapeutic vaccine strategies to block new infections and control existing infections, respectively. Particular emphasis is being placed on activating dendritic cells at the body surfaces to enhance the subsequent T- and B-cell responses against a whole inactivated virus vaccine applied to the surfaces of the oral/nasal cavity.

Understanding how to harness the natural biology of dendritic cells to fight HIV will be critical to advancing immune-based therapies.

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Population Council researchers

Current: Melissa Robbiani, Loreley Villamide-Herrera, Ines Frank, Jessica Kenney, Onome Akpogheneta, Federica Crostarosa, Nina Derby, Edith Jasny, Panagiotis Vagenas, Meropi Aravantinou, Rachel Singer, Vennansha Williams

Former: Gavin Morrow, Silvia Peretti, Natalia Teleshova, Susanna Trapp, Stuart Turville, Laurence Vachot, Seol-Young Han, Jennifer Jones, Todd Miller, John Santos, Andrew Shaw

Non-Council collaborators

James Blanchard (Tulane National Primate Research Center, Covington, Louisiana)

Agegnehu Gettie (Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, New York)

Jeffrey Lifson (National Cancer Institute, Frederick, Maryland)

Andres Salazar (Oncovir, Washington, DC)

Gary Van Nest (Dynavax, Berkley, California)

Donor

US National Institutes of Health

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