Genetic vaccination: engineering antiviral T-cell immunity through stem cells

Abstract

The human immune system is normally assidu‐ ous in controlling the environmental assaults that the body receives every day. Foreign anti‐ gens are typically targeted and cleared in a highly evolved and coordinated fashion by a variety of different cell types. Instances where this response fails and the pathogen is not cleared have important consequences for mor‐ bidity and mortality. This is certainly the case for HIV, where the infection is only partially controlled. The resultant persistence of the virus established after primary infection is an indica‐ tion of an ongoing battle between the immune response and the viruses’ ability to mutate and replicate. Ultimately, natural immune responses fail to prevent the establishment or clearance of infection with HIV in the vast majority of cases. Thus, there is a desperate need for alterna‐ tive strategies that augment natural immunity to HIV infection and that allow the immune system to specifically target and clear virally infected cells.