Patent granted for EradicAide technology to diagnose, prevent, treat AIDS.

2004 MAR 3 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Adventrx Pharmaceuticals (AVRX) announced that its collaborators at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have been issued United States Patent number 6,656,471 entitled "HIV-specific T-cell induction," for a method to diagnose, prevent, and treat AIDS.

This method involves the use of HIV peptides and HLA-restricted T-cell responses in both the prediction of long-term non-progression of AIDS and prevention of AIDS. Adventrx has an exclusive worldwide license regarding this patent and other intellectual property for its EradicAide technology. The company is developing EradicAide technology as a therapeutic vaccine for HIV/AIDS.

Most patients infected with HIV-1 do not exhibit clinical manifestations of AIDS for 6 to 10 years following initial infection. However, some HIV-1 infected persons remain free of disease for 10 or more years, and are termed long-term non-progressors (LTNP). They exhibit lower viral loads and stable CD4 positive T-cell counts. Furthermore, recent evidence suggests cytotoxic T-cell lymphocytes (CTL) are important for induction and maintenance of the disease-free status of LTNP.

EradicAide vaccine is composed of a cocktail of synthetic peptides based upon highly conserved regions from HIV virus envelope proteins, gp 120 and gp 41. Specific peptides in the cocktail are designed to stimulate a CTL response in a manner intended to relate to how LTNPs control HIV infection.

The EradicAide peptides are presented to the immune system via human leukocyte antigens, called HLA-A, HLA-B and HLA-C to stimulate CTL clearance of HIV- infected cells. Since it is known that HIV uses Nef protein to down-regulate HLA-A and HLA-B in some individuals, EradicAide vaccine contains peptides that are also presented through HLA-C, thereby circumventing this control mechanism of HIV.