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1615 Poydras Street - Suite 1000
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Areas of Research: Mucosal Genetic Vaccines for HIV Dr. Kozlowski’s major research focus is to develop novel prophylactic and therapeutics genetic vaccines for HIV/AIDS, mucosally-delivered genetic vaccines, and novel vaccines adjuvant. Vectors will be used to deliver genes to stimulate the immune response. One of her main projects involves the identification of a safe nasal adjuvant for DNA and protein/peptide vaccines against HIV to induce complete protection from HIV infection. The major goal of this project is perform preclinical vaccines studies on nonhuman primates to evaluate the ability of QS-21 (an investigational immune adjuvant) to function as an adjuvant for nasally-administered HIV DNA vaccines and recombinant envelop protein; the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of mucosal prime/systemic boost and vice versa vaccination regimens with DNA+protein+adjuvant formulation; and the ability to simultaneously induce antiviral humoral and cellular immune responses in the intestinal mucosa, cervicovaginal mucosa, and circulation by performing simultaneous nasa/intradermal vaccination with DNA+protein+adjuvant. Dr. Kozlowski’s team has demonstrated that vaccines designed to prevent mucosal transmission of HIV should establish multiple immune effectors in vaccine recipients, including antibodies which are capable of blocking HIV entry at mucosal epithelial barriers and of preventing initial infection of target cells in the mucosa. Recent studies performed in nonhuman primates showed that both secretory and serum antibodies may play a role in protection against mucosal transmission of HIV by blocking attachment of virus or infected cells to epithelial cells, interception of virus during transepithelial transport, neutralization of virus in the mucosa, and elimination of locally infected cells through antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxic reactions. Further studies on nonhuman primates are on the way of to test the safety and efficacy vaccines adjuvant for human use. Other projects include the development of HIV virus-like particles (VLPs) and DNA as an HIV DNA/particle nasal vaccine, and the development of an HIV mucosal antibody-inducing nasal DNA/peptide vaccine. Selected Publications Nautra, M.R., and Kozlowski, P.A. Mucosal vaccines: the promise and the challenge. Nature Review Immunology, (2006) February; 6(2):148-158 Wang, S.W., Bertley, F.M., Kozlowski, P.A., Herrmann, L., Manson, K., Mazzara, G., Piatak, M., Johnson, R.P., Carville, A., Mansfield, K., and Aldovini, A. An SHIV DNA/MVA rectal vaccination in macaques provides systemic and mucosal virus-specific responses and protection against AIDS. AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses, (2004) August; 20(8): 846-859 Bertley, F.M., Kozlowski, P.A., Wang, S.W., Chappelle, J., Patel, J., Sonuyi, O., Mazzara, G., Montefiori, D., Carville, A., Mansfield, K.G., and Aldovini, A. Control of simian/human immunodeficiency virus viremia and disease progression after IL-2-augmented DNA-modified vaccinia virus Ankara nasal vaccination in nonhuman primates. Journal of Immunology, (2004) March; 172(6):3745-3757 Kozlowski, P.A., and Neutra, M.R. The role
of mucosal immunity in prevention of HIV transmission. Current
Molecular Medicine, (2003) May; 3(3):217-228 |
