Induction of HIV-specific immune responses is both a primary endpoint inthe preclinical studies and a secondary endpoint in the clinical trial of novel MVA-based vaccines described in this IPCAVD application. Core C, the Immune Monitoring Core (IMC) of this application will perform state-of-the-art assays of both humoral and cellular immune responses for Projects 1 and 2 which describe preclinical experiments in rhesus macaques designed to determine the best MVA-based vectors to carry forward into a human clinical trial. The IMC will also perform these assays for the human clinical trial described in Core B.
The Specific Aims of the IMC are: (1) to evaluate T cell immune responses to the HIV vaccine antigens, using validated Intracellular Cytokine Staining (ICS), ELISpot, and flow cytometry-based proliferation assays; (2) to test serum samples from vaccinated subjects for both HIV-binding and -neutralizing antibodies.
