CORE--VACCINE CORE LABORATORY

The vaccine core laboratory will interact with pharmaceutical companies to manufacture a variety of peptide AIDS Vaccines starting with the gp120-MN-PND vaccine. In the first two years it will provide the necessary funds for the manufacturing and conjugation of peptide vaccines as these are being developed by investigators in Project II. Preliminary experimental studies in mice will be conducted to determin toxicities and immunogenicity of candidate vaccines. As the vaccine trials proceed through the investigations delineated in Projet I and II, research methods developed to monitor vaccine outcome will be adapted in the core facility for routine monitoring of vaccine outcome. Targetted antibodies will be developed in conjugation with Stratacyte Corp. (LaJolla, Ca), where all recombinant DNA work involving human monoclonal antibody expression in the ImmunoZap bacteriophage lambda expression vector, will be carried out.