Why do you think your paper is highly cited?

This paper is the first demonstration of the ability of a vaccine-raised memory response to control a highly pathogenic immunodeficiency virus challenge in rhesus macaques.  The study evaluates the efficacy of a vaccine based on priming with DNA and boosting with rMVA (DNA/MVA) to control a SHIV 89.6P challenge administered intrarectally at seven months after the final vaccination.

  Could you summarize the significance of your paper in layman’s terms?

WHO estimates that currently there are about 40 million individuals living with HIV and there are 16,000 new infections daily, worldwide.  At this rate the AIDS epidemic represents a major threat to public health globally.  Availability of drugs that control virus replication and improved treatment regimens like HAART have only been successful in prolonging the life of the infected individual so far.  Furthermore, there are several potential problems that are associated with the use of anti-viral drugs such as the affordability, rigorous adherence and resistance.  For these reasons development of a safe and effective HIV vaccine is imperative.  The multi-protein DNA/MVA vaccine raised very high titers of HIV-specific T infected cells) that rapidly expanded to control cells (white blood cells that can kill the virus the immunodeficiency virus challenge.  By 30 weeks post challenge, all control unvaccinated animals (4/4) died due to AIDS whereas all vaccinated animals (24/24) were healthy and maintained their plasma viral loads at or below the level of detection (300 copies per ml plasma).  This paper raises the hope that one day we will have an effective vaccine for AIDS.

Dr. Rama Rao Amara
Assistant Professor
Emory University
Atlanta , GA