Remune

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Remune ( HIV-1 Immunogen or "Salk vaccine" or AG1661) was the name of an experimental vaccine against the HI virus , which goes back to a proposal by the American immunologist Jonas Salk (inventor of a successful polio vaccine ) and by a company he founded, IRC (Immune Response Corporation). The vaccine should not be able to prevent new infections , but should be able to favorably influence the course of an HIV infection through an increased immune response .

Remune story

For the development of Remune, Salk founded the research institute Immune Response Corporation in 1987, which began a cooperation with the Agouron company in 1998 . Agouron was later acquired by Warner-Lambert and eventually Pfizer . Pfizer meanwhile took over the funding of the Remune development, but withdrew from the partnership with IRC and research in 2001. A clinical, placebo-controlled study with Remune showed no benefit for the HIV-positive 2527 patients and was terminated early in 1999. In 2000, as a sponsor of the $ 30 million study, IRC allegedly put pressure on researchers (particularly James O. Kahn) to prevent negative reports from spreading about the study. (See article in the Washington Post and the New York Times of November 1, 2000.) Due to a lack of evidence of its effectiveness, the further development of the vaccine has been stopped by the IRC.

Vaccination principle

The Salk vaccination method relied on isolated HIV-1 viruses from Zaire , which were inactivated after cultivation and propagation by gamma irradiation and the addition of propiolactone . After a subsequent centrifugation, the outer coat proteins gp120 and gp160 were removed. The idea was that the core antigen p24 should be incorporated into the envelope of the host (mainly macrophages, also T4 cells) during virus production. The immune system would then have fought the virus-expressing host cells. The envelope protein was removed because it blocked the immune system's B cells. Different immune cells, including macrophages, T4 cells and B cells but also the HI virus, have complementary surface proteins with which they attach to each other, similar to attractive magnetic poles.

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