ID-LV

A Novel Dendritic Cell Specific Antigen Delivery Platform

One of the most fundamental challenges to generating anti-tumor CD8 T cell responses is promoting the direct presentation of antigens within the context of MHC Class I molecules by dendritic cells and breaking antigen tolerance. Recombinant vectors are the most effective approach to overcoming this challenge due to their ability to drive the de novo transcription and translation of the antigen in vivo.

Immune Design Corp has developed a lentivector (LV) based vaccine platform that has been specifically engineered to deliver antigen-encoding nucleic acids to dendritic cells in vivo.

The prototype of this platform, initially developed in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Dr. David Baltimore, represented a sea of change in the field. The ability of the vector platform to directly target dendritic cells with both an antigen and an immune modulatory element was demonstrated to elicit unprecedented levels of antigen-specific CD8 T cell expansion after a single injection. This indicated the promising potential of ID-LV to initiate and shape a desired immune response in vaccinated individuals to protect against or treat a targeted pathogen or malignancy.  

The ability to efficiently generate CD8 T cell responses to a delivered antigen makes this technology so appealing for use in the design of vaccines to combat intracellular pathogens and cancer, both of which require cellular immunity to realize clinical benefit.

Immune Design has incorporated specific design elements into the current generation ID-LV platform: dendritic cell targeting; redundant safety mechanisms to reduce or eliminate integrase enzyme-dependent integration and replication events; no pre-existing neutralizing vector-specific immunity; and, the possibility for repeat administrations of the vector.  Read more about the GLA approach to treating cancer.