A research team led by Dr. Jonathan Angel, from the University of Ottawa will conduct the first Canadian clinical trial of a therapeutic HIV vaccine.
The clinical trial sponsored by Canadian Network for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics (CANVAC) was started in early April and is expected to take 18 months. Sixty patients from Ottawa and Montreal, who have been on effective therapy and have had no detectable HIV in their blood for at least two years, will be enrolled. The patients will be recruited from three university hospital centres: The Ottawa Hospital, the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) and the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC).
HIV-infected patients are currently treated using highly active drug combinations. These drug cocktails have major side effects. Therapeutic vaccination against HIV is being studied to reduce drug dependence, to help patients gain some reprieve from these debilitating effects.
“An effective therapeutic vaccine will help the person’s immune system control their HIV infection, potentially without the use of medications, and provide important insights into the development of an effective preventative vaccine,” Dr. Angel said.,
Dr. Angel specializes in infectious diseases. He is an associate professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology of the University’s Faculty of Medicine and a scientist in molecular medicine at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
CANVAC is a network of 79 Canadian scientists specializing in the fields of immunology, virology, and molecular biology, who are affiliated with 25 hospitals and research institutes.
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