ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, December 4, 1993                   TAG: 9312040105
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BETHESDA, MD.                                LENGTH: Medium

ANTI-AIDS VIRAL THERAPY WINS APPROVAL FOR TEST

An experimental vaccine that uses a mouse virus to help the human body fight the AIDS virus was approved for testing Friday by an advisory committee to the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Richard Haubrich of the University of California, San Diego, the lead investigator on the project, said the vaccine is designed to trigger search and destroy missions against AIDS by killer cells within the immune system of patients already infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. That virus causes AIDS.

The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, a group of experts that evaluates experimental human therapy proposals that use manipulated genes, approved Haubrich's proposal to test the vaccine on 20 patients. Before the experiment can begin, it must also be approved by the director of the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration.

Haubrich said the vaccine will be the first to use genes from the AIDS virus to trigger action by the body's cytotoxic T lymphocytes, or CTLs, the so-called killer cells of the immune system.

"This is a therapy aimed at boosting the immune response to HIV in people who are already infected with the HIV virus," said Haubrich. "This is different from what we normally think of as vaccine, which is to prevent the disease."

The experimental vaccine is a mouse virus modified so that it cannot reproduce. Two harmless genes from HIV are inserted into the mouse virus, along with a bacterial marker gene used to trace its spread.

In effect, the mouse virus is used as a vehicle to carry the HIV genes into the body.

Once injected, the mouse virus infects cells near the injection site. The virus moves into the nucleus of the cells and the two HIV genes command the cells to make a protein normally found on the surface of the AIDS virus.

This causes the CTLs, or immune system killer cells, to seek out and attack all cells that contain the HIV genes, Haubrich said. 


 by CNB