Prospects for control of emerging infectious diseases with plasmid DNA vaccines

Moss, Ronald B

Another approach for the delivery of DNA vaccines is the use of needle-free devices. Needle-free injection of DNA vaccines has been utilized in numerous clinical studies and appears to be well-tolerated and may have some advantages of further augmenting the immune response to DNA vaccination. For example, Nabel and colleagues at the NIH injected individuals intramuscularly with a sixplasmid unformulated DNA vaccine for HIV (Env A, Env B, Env C, subtype B gag, Pol, and Nef) with the needle-free device (Biojector ® 2000) and observed HIV specific T-cell immune responses in over 75% of individuals [21] . Similarly, this same group at the NIH completed a recent study of an Ebola DNA vaccine also using this same needle-free device. They demonstrated that Ebola-specific antibody and CD4+ T-cell immune responses were elicited in all individuals who received the three-dose vaccination regimen [22] .