Herpes Cure 2015

Therapeutic HSV-2 Vaccine: Critical Goal or Pipe Dream?

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 16:33:12 +0000

Therapeutic HSV-2 Vaccine: Critical Goal or Pipe Dream? To those who have followed my blog in the past, please accept my apology for about 7 months of radio silence. I took a Sabbatical Leave at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/organization/dir/rml/Pages/default.aspx) from Dec 2013 to June 2014 to brush up on my techniques, and develop some […]

Where to vaccinate: arm or the bum?

Fri, 16 May 2014 21:01:47 +0000

QUESTION: Dear Dr. Bill, Let’s discuss the therapeutic effect of a future vaccine. So basically the patient gets a vaccine shot in his arm, just like all other vaccines are given. How does the human immune system respond next in the case of Acam-529 as an example? Antibodies and T-Cells get generated. Would an arm […]

One-year anniversary

Fri, 16 May 2014 16:41:45 +0000

For those of you who follow this blog with some regularity, I thought a quick post was in order to acknowledge that this blog site is approaching its first anniversary; the first blog post was made on June 15, 2013. By June 14, 2014, the Herpesvaccine Blog will have been visited over 116,000 times. Thank […]

How does the immune system respond to a HSV-2 vaccine?

Sun, 11 May 2014 02:59:08 +0000

It has been over 6 months since I made a new post on the blog. Sorry about the hiatus…..the laboratory has been occupying all of my time, but I managed to carve out some time to work on the following post. Someone sent me a query / comment on this blog last month that […]

On the upcoming ACAM-529 vaccine trial

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 02:09:58 +0000

David Knipe, Lynda Morrison, and Jeffrey Cohen are three of the principal scientists who have been involved in research over the past 15 years that has brought the HSV-2 ACAM-529 vaccine to a Phase I Clinical Trial. Sanofi Pasteur is the company that has backed / sponsored the ACAM-529 vaccine, and Sanofi Pasteur will presumably […]

On the Agenus HerpV vaccine trials

Tue, 12 Nov 2013 15:53:33 +0000

Two readers recently asked me about the Agenus HerpV trials. Given that this is a topic of broad concern to genital herpes sufferers, I have converted the original query and my response to a blog post as follows. – Bill H. ————————————— November 8, 2013 Dr. Halford, Agenus released their initial phase 2 results: http://www.antigenics.com/docs/press-releases/2013/herpv-vaccine-for-genital-herpes-meets-primary-endpoint.php […]

Proper Vetting of HSV-2 Vaccines and its Importance

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 16:51:23 +0000

OVERVIEW In an earlier post on June 30, I suggested that there are two steps that could be taken to expedite the rate of HSV-2 vaccine development, and these are: Step 1. Appropriate Use of Small Animal Models (i.e., De-Risking HSV-2 Vaccine Development) Step 2. Streamlining the Path to Phase I Human Clinical Testing […]

Halford HSV-2 Vaccine Research Highlights

Sat, 20 Jul 2013 16:08:01 +0000

Since setting up this blog in June 2013, I have received several inquiries about how my research fits into the broader topic of the field of HSV-2 vaccine research. To address such questions in advance, I provide a brief summary below. For anyone interested in all the details, a quick visit to PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) followed […]

The Phase I Clinical Testing Bottleneck

Wed, 17 Jul 2013 16:33:24 +0000

In an earlier post, I suggested that an important step that could be taken to expedite herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) Vaccine Development would be to “Streamline the Path to Phase I Human Clinical Testing of HSV-2 Vaccines.” In today’s post, I wish to expand upon this point, and suggest that a “Compassionate Use Trial” […]

Thoughts of one of the millions of genital herpes sufferers….

Tue, 16 Jul 2013 17:48:45 +0000

In my line of work, every now and then, I receive e-mails and letters from people with genital herpes. This is the primary means by which I have come to gain some small, limited appreciation of how HSV-2 infection and genital herpes affect people in ways that simply cannot be measured with an antibody titer, […]