Rama R. Amara , Ph.D.

Microbiology & Immunology

• Ph.D., Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 1999
• M.Sc., Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India 1993

The focus of my laboratory is to develop a therapeutic vaccine for HIV/AIDS. For this purpose we chose to use heterologous prime/boost protocols using DNA, MVA and Adeno viral vectors for vaccination that have been highly successful in generating a broad virus-specific CD8 and CD4 T cells that can control a highly pathogenic SHIV challenge in macaques. We use SIV/macaque model to evaluate the therapeutic ability of our DNA/MVA vaccines.

CD4 T cell help is critical for the generation and maintenance of functional anti-viral CD8 T cells and affinity maturation of antibody. As we test the therapeutic ability of these vaccines in macaques using a SIV challenge model, we also recognize that the preferential loss of virus-specific CD4 help in HIV/SIV-infected host could pose a major limitation for the ability of these vaccines to raise functional anti-viral CD8 T cells. Our approach to the development of therapeutic vaccines for HIV will be to improve the generation of functional anti-viral CD8 T cells and high affinity neutralizing antibody by providing functions normally provided by CD4 T cells during vaccination.

Our strategy is to

1. Treat infected individuals with anti-viral therapy before and during the vaccination to reduce viral loads and allow at least partial CD4 T cell recovery
2. Enhance CD4 T cell help using genetic adjuvants such as GM-CSF
3. Identify adjuvants such as TLR agonists and CD40L to bypass the need for CD4 help to raise functional CD8 T cells and Ab.

Ongoing experiments in our laboratory evaluate various adjuvants that can bypass the need for CD4 help to raise functional CD8 T cells in mice, and test the therapeutic potential of these adjuvanted vaccines in the SIV/macaque model.