In recognition of the frequent association of HIV-1 infection with the use of injected heroin, the US Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) and the National Institute for Drug Abuse initiated a collaborative interagency agreement in 2010 to examine the feasibility of creating a practical combination anti-heroin vaccine (AHV) and HIV vaccine product. Based on the recent multi- institutional immune correlate analyses of the successful MHRP RV144 Thai trial that demonstrated that antibodies directed to the HIV-1 gp120 V2 loop correlated with protection against HIV-1 infection, together with previous studies that demonstrated the feasibility of immunoprotection to heroin abuse, MHRP believes that a unique opportunity exists to create a candidate peptide vaccine both to HIV-1 and heroin. As a result of this collaboration, a safe, inexpensive, heroin-hapten-peptide-based, easily manufactured, strongly adjuvanted combination candidate AHV/HIV vaccine product has now been created that is ready for optimization and advanced preclinical testing for anticipated phase I and phase II clinical trials. If successful it is anticipated that this vaccine will provid a deployable heroin vaccine and will represent a major advance for creation of a practical and effective HIV vaccine. The major goals are to: (1) optimize the hapten-gp41/gp120-T helper peptide-adjuvant-carrier formulation by examining the relative immune responses in rodents with three alternative identified lead heroin haptens;(2) perform advanced preclinical immunogenicity studies in rodents with the final lead formulation to examine antibody isotypes, affinities, specificities for heroin and HIV gp41 and gp120-V2 loop epitopes;(3) examine vaccine-induced anti-heroin antibodies for prevention of anesthetic effects and prevention of physiological effects associated with drug overdose in rodents and non-human primates;(4) perform neutralization and other in vitro functional analyses of vaccine- i
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