Patent granted for herpes vaccine; peptide may be used as adjuvant for vaccines.

2003 JUL 2 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Cel-Sci Corp. (CVM) has been issued a new U.S. patent, no. 6,572,860, which further expands the proprietary protection for Cel-Sci's herpes simplex-based therapeutic and preventive vaccines.

The patent describes improved versions of the company's already patented core technology that contains within its sequence several epitopes (small pieces of approximately 8-10 amino acids found within foreign proteins) against which the immune system reacts. The patent also describes the combination of these new peptides with the company's L.E.A.P.S. technology for better delivery and presentation to the immune system.

Dan Zimmerman, senior VP research, cellular immunology of Cel-Sci, and inventor of the technology said, "The L.E.A.P.S. technology allows for the preparation of novel immunotherapeutic agents that can target specific types of immune cells and elicit the most appropriate cellular or humoral responses for that disease. In some of our research related to this patent, we have taken two peptides that have been shown to induce protective immune responses in the Herpes Simplex murine challenge model and improved the antigen by making it more broadly immunogenic."

L.E.A.P.S. is a novel T-cell modulation platform technology that enables Cel-Sci to design and synthesize proprietary immunogens. L.E.A.P.S. compounds consist of a peptide epitope associated with a disease-causing agent linked to a T-cell binding peptide ligand (TCBL). Together they induce the immune system to mount either a cellular (e.g., T-cell), humoral (antibody), or a mixed immune response as a means to treat, control or prevent disease.

Therefore, L.E.A.P.S. is thought to be a delivery vehicle that directs or controls the immune response to the desired outcome. This ability to preferentially direct the immune system is a major breakthrough. Any diseases for which antigenic epitope sequences have been identified, such as infectious diseases, cancer, autoimmune diseases, allergic asthma and allergy, are ...