![Vaccinating Against Herpes Simplex Viruses]()
Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) causes herpes--a common illness involving recurrent oral or genital skin lesions. There is no effective vaccine to prevent herpes, andantiviral drugs reduce symptoms but do not eradicate the virus. In a report in the August 4 JCI Insight, Betsy Herold, M.D., and William Jacobs, Jr., Ph.D., co-senior authors, and colleagues demonstrate that a new vaccine candidate developed in their labs (DgD-2) protected mice infected by genetically diverse strains of HSV-1 and HSV-2 that were provided by Amy Fox, M.D., at the Clinical Virology Lab of Montefiore. The vaccine induces antibodies that rapidly clear the virus from the skin before it can establish latency and persist in the body. These results distinguish this vaccine from all other candidate vaccines in the field. The study’s lead author was Christopher D. Petro, a graduate student from their labs. Dr. Herold is professor of pediatrics, of microbiology & immunology, and of obstetrics & gynecology and women’s health. Dr. Jacobs is professor of microbiology & immunology and genetics, and is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
Posted on: Thursday, August 04, 2016