It is disclosed herein that (a) an anti-tumor DNA vaccine delivered using a MIP DNA vector is a less effective tumor treatment than the corresponding anti-tumor DNA vaccine delivered using a conventio...
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FDA-qualified cell lines must be used for virus production for human vaccines. There are relatively few of these lines available and several (WI-38, MRC-5) used for virus production are becoming senes...
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Current anti-cancer DNA vaccines are safe and immunologically effective, but would be still more effective if they could elicit a stronger anti-tumor response and require fewer administrations. For th...
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The epidemiology of influenza Type B viruses differs from Type A; influenza B viruses primarily circulate in humans and do not cause pandemics. However, in some seasons the impact of influenza B infec...
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The influenza virus is a highly contagious respiratory pathogen that causes annual epidemics and occasional pandemics. Although many studies have looked at how a host responds to infection with the vi...
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Influenza is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide every year. Vaccines can be used to prevent influenza, but traditional methods for producing influenza vaccine are slow and cumbe...
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Vaccines against influenza and other viruses can be grown in Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells. Problematically, an influenza virus that is made by combining H1N1 and PR8 strains, and that is recommen...
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Influenza infects up to 20 percent of the world’s population every year, causing 500,000 deaths and costing tens of billions of dollars in medical expenses. Influenza A virus, which causes pandemics...
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There are no commercial vaccines against fungi. Infections like aspergillosis and Valley Fever can be life-threatening, particularly in immune-compromised patients. These patients also are more vulner...
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Johne’s disease, or paratuberculosis, is a chronic and usually fatal wasting disease that is found worldwide and impacts more than half of the dairy herds in the U.S. alone. It costs the ruminan...
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Ebola is the deadliest virus on earth. It has caused death in 90 percent of cases during some outbreaks, afflicting human and great ape populations in tropical Africa. The virus is highly contagious i...
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Influenza viruses instigate annual global epidemics. The first influenza pandemic in 40 years occurred during the 2009-2010 season, when a novel H1N1 strain emerged and spread worldwide. The United St...
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Avian influenza causes significant economic losses for poultry producers worldwide and can be transmitted to humans and other mammals. The surface glycoproteins hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (N...
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Influenza is caused by the eight-segmented influenza virus. Vaccines can be used to prevent influenza, but traditional methods for producing influenza vaccine are slow and cumbersome. To generate re...
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Influenza is a major disease in humans that can be prevented by vaccination. Because new epidemic strains arise every year or two, the conventional influenza vaccine must be adapted almost every year,...
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Influenza causes hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide every year. Two of the genes critical for influenza virus infection are haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). HA and NA are on the surf...
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The H1N1 influenza virus, known as the “swine flu,” has been declared a pandemic.  While this virus is less virulent than many circulating strains of flu virus, it has become the subj...
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Influenza is a major disease in humans that can be prevented by vaccination. Because new epidemic strains arise every year or two, influenza vaccines must be adapted almost every year.  Live atte...
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The extensive use of neuraminidase (NA) inhibitors to treat influenza virus infections by reducing viral sialidase activity requires close monitoring for resistant variants. However, cultured cells do...
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Ebola virus, a negative strand RNA virus in the family Filoviridae, is among the most lethal human pathogens. Efforts to develop treatments for Ebola infections have been hampered by a lack of effecti...
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Dendritic cells play an important role in the process of initiating immune response. They are present in small quantities in tissues, such as skin and lung, that are in contact with the external envir...
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Prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer among North American men. Current therapies for prostate cancer involve either removing the entire gland or treating it with radiation; however...
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Approximately one-third of the world’s population is infected with the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB).  Five to 10 percent of non-immunocompr...
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Influenza causes widespread morbidity and mortality worldwide. High-risk populations are routinely vaccinated in the United States, but influenza is still responsible for approximately 200,000 hospita...
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