Review Article
Safe and Effective Smallpox Vaccine Development Using DNA Vaccines and In vivo Electroporation,Probabilistic risk assessment
Amir S Khan, Kate E Broderick, Jian Yan, Matthew P Morrow and Niranjan Y Sardesai*
Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 1787 Sentry Parkway, Blue Bell, PA 19422, USA
- *Corresponding Author:
- Dr. Niranjan Y. Sardesai
Senior Vice President of Research and Development
Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 1787 Sentry Parkway
Blue Bell, PA 19422, USA
Tel: (267) 440-4232
Fax: (267) 440-4242
E-mail: nsardesai@inovio.com
Received Date: October 11, 2011; Accepted Date: December 15, 2011; Published Date: December 21, 2011
Citation: Khan AS, Broderick KE, Yan J, Morrow MP, Sardesai NY (2012) Safe and Effective Smallpox Vaccine Development Using DNA Vaccines and In vivo Electroporation. J Bioterr Biodef S1:010. doi:10.4172/2157-2526.S1-010
Copyright: © 2012 Khan AS, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Few viruses have elicited more fear of its potential as a tool of bioterrorism than smallpox. In the post-9/11
“Amerithrax” environment, the threat of an intentional release of smallpox has led to renewed efforts to develop a safer vaccine, with fewer side effects, that could be administered to the general public. DNA vaccines administered through the use of enhanced delivery using electroporation could provide a platform for delivering a smallpox vaccine. Previously published data have shown that an 8 plasmid combination vaccine consisting of VACV antigens (specifically, A4L, A27L, A33R, A56R, B5R, F9L, H3L, and L1R) delivered to rabbits and nonhuman primates followed by electroporation elicited robust humoral and cell-mediated immune responses. Furthermore, non-human primates were protected from lethal challenge with monkeypox, showing that this vaccine platform is effective. This review summarizes recent data supporting vaccine development using DNA and electroporation to protect the general public in the event of a bioterror incident using smallpox.
