relevant Publications
Find here relevant scientific publications and technical articles – including from TherVacB project partners. Scroll down to read more about chronic hepatitis B, the virus, screening and testing for hepatitis C and B, therapeutic vaccination, and cure research.
Acceptance of Social Media Recruitment for Clinical Studies Among Patients With Hepatitis B: Mixed Methods Study
26 agosto 2024 | Journal of Medical Internet Research
Questo studio si concentra sui pazienti affetti da epatite B in Germania ed esamina il loro atteggiamento nei confronti dell’utilizzo di piattaforme di social media come Facebook e Twitter per il reclutamento di partecipanti a studi clinici.
L’epatite B è una malattia infettiva cronica e i pazienti affetti da questa patologia sono spesso considerati vulnerabili, con un potenziale stigma e discriminazione.
I ricercatori del TherVacB’s TUM-MED e della TUM, dell’Università di Berna e dell’Università di Basilea hanno intervistato 195 pazienti di tre centri clinici in Germania e hanno scoperto che fattori come l’alfabetizzazione digitale, la fiducia nelle fonti non mediche, le preoccupazioni per la privacy e la volontà di condividere la propria diagnosi hanno un impatto sull’accettazione del reclutamento sui social media.
Lo studio sottolinea come la comprensione di questi fattori, tra cui l’accettazione delle tecnologie sanitarie, possa aiutare i ricercatori a progettare strategie di reclutamento, bilanciando al contempo considerazioni etiche e di protezione dei dati, soprattutto in questo gruppo vulnerabile. These insights could improve enrolment for clinical studies in the future.
Practical Benefits, Challenges, and Recommendations on Social Media Recruitment: Multi-Stakeholder Interview Study
Efficient stabilization of therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine components by amino-acid formulation maintains its potential to break immune tolerance
February 2023 | Journal of Hepatology
Induction of potent, HBV-specific immune responses is crucial to control and finally cure HBV. The therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine TherVacB combines protein priming with a Modified Vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA)-vector boost to break immune tolerance in chronic HBV infection. Particulate protein and vector vaccine components, however, require a constant cooling chain for storage and transport, posing logistic and financial challenges to vaccine applications. Authors of this article aimed to identify an optimal formulation to maintain stability and immunogenicity of the protein and vector components of the vaccine using a systematic approach. This will facilitate global vaccine application without the need for cooling chains and is important for the development of prophylactic as well as therapeutic vaccines supporting vaccination campaigns worldwide.
https://www.jhep-reports.eu/article/S2589-5559%2822%2900175-6/fulltext
Social media advertising for clinical studies: Ethical and data protection implications of online targeting
21 February 2023 | Big Data & Society
Social media advertising is gaining a foothold in the recruitment of clinical study participants, promising more yield per money spent because the technology can better reach highly specialised groups. In this article, authors point out severe societal risks posed by advertising for clinical studies on social media and call for updates of research ethics guidelines and better regulation of Big Data and inferential analytics. In conclusion, social media advertising – especially with vulnerable patient populations – is deemed unsuitable as a recruitment tool for clinical studies as long as the processing of (even anonymised) social media usage data and the training of predictive models by data analytics and artificial intelligence companies is not sufficiently regulated.
Valutazione dell'effetto della coespressione di CD70 sulla risposta delle cellule T CD8 nella vaccinazione MVA-Prime Protein-Boost nei topi
Activation of CD4 T cells during prime immunization determines the success of a therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine in HBV-carrier mouse models
9 gennaio 2023 | Journal of Hepatology
Gli autori descrivono lo schema di vaccinazione terapeutica eterologa recentemente sviluppato(TherVacB) che comprende una proteina particolata seguita da un boost di vaccinia-virus Ankara (MVA) modificato per il trattamento dell’HBV. Tuttavia, i fattori determinanti necessari per superare la tolleranza immunitaria specifica dell’HBV rimangono poco chiari. In this article, new combination adjuvants and unravel factors are studied that are essential for the antiviral efficacy of the TherVacB vaccination scheme.
Per saperne di più sul lavoro del team composto dalla Prof.ssa Ulrike Protzer e dalla Dott.ssa Anna Kosinska, leggi qui: https://idw-online.de/en/news807417
https://www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/article/S0168-8278(22)03465-1/fulltext#secsectitle0045
Valutazione dell'effetto della coespressione di CD70 sulla risposta delle cellule T CD8 nella vaccinazione MVA-Prime Protein-Boost nei topi
21 gennaio 2023 | Vaccines – Special Issue Hepatitis Virus Vaccine Immune Therapy
In questo articolo, il team di ricercatori studia il potenziale della co-espressione di CD70 durante la vaccinazione con vettori virali per migliorare la risposta delle cellule T antigene-specifiche. Nel complesso, questo studio indica che la co-espressione orchestrata di CD70 e di un antigene vaccinale può essere un mezzo interessante e sicuro per potenziare le risposte delle cellule T CD8 antigene-specifiche utilizzando vaccini basati su vettori, anche se nel nostro studio non è stata sufficiente a rompere la tolleranza immunitaria.
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/11/2/245
A thermostable therapeutic vaccine is able to break immune tolerance in a mouse model of chronic hepatitis B
12 ottobre 2022 | Journal of Hepatology (JHEP) Reports
La vaccinazione terapeutica è un’opzione terapeutica promettente per l’epatite cronica B che può consentire di curarla. Tuttavia, la sua applicazione richiede catene di raffreddamento funzionali durante il trasporto e lo stoccaggio che difficilmente possono essere garantite in molti paesi con un’elevata domanda. In this study, the authors including Julia Sacherl, Anna D. Kosinska and Ulrike Protzer, developed thermostable vaccine components that are well tolerated and allow inducing immune responses and control the virus in preclinical mouse models even after long-term exposure to high surrounding temperatures. This will lower costs and ease application of a therapeutic vaccine and thus be beneficial for the many hepatitis B patients worldwide.
Per saperne di più sul lavoro del team del laboratorio del Prof. Protzer: https://www.dzif.de/en/chronic-hepatitis-b-development-thermostable-therapeutic-vaccine.
https://www.jhep-reports.eu/article/S2589-5559(22)00175-6/fulltext
A roadmap for serum biomarkers for hepatitis B virus: current status and future outlook
Ethical Issues in Social Media Recruitment for Clinical Studies: Ethical Analysis and Framework
Closing in on a cure for hepatitis B
30 marzo 2022 | Nature
ElieDolgin
Corsi di trattamento finiti potrebbero tenere sotto controllo il virus – con la giusta combinazione di farmaci.
Continua a leggere per sapere come Ulrike Protzer e Mala Maini di TherVacB, insieme ad altri scienziati, virologi, immunologi virali ed epatologi leader nel settore dell’HBV in tutto il mondo, hanno spinto lo sviluppo di un piano d’azione incentrato sulla cura dell’HBV che include le prospettive dei pazienti.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00812-1
Immunogenicity and Antiviral Response of Therapeutic Hepatitis B Vaccination in a Mouse Model of HBeAg-Negative, Persistent HBV Infection
31 July 2021 | Vaccines
Anna D Kosinska, Julia Festag, Martin Mück-Häusl, Marvin M Festag, Theresa Asen, Ulrike Protzer
Durante il decorso naturale dell’infezione cronica da virus dell’epatite B (HBV), l’antigene dell’epatite B e (HBeAg) viene tipicamente perso, mentre la trasmissione diretta di HBV HBeAg-negativo può causare un’epatite B fulminante. Sebbene l’induzione di risposte immunitarie specifiche per l’HBV tramite la vaccinazione terapeutica sia un’opzione di trattamento promettente e innovativa per l’epatite cronica B, non è ancora chiaro se la perdita dell’HBeAg possa influenzarne l’efficacia o la tollerabilità. We therefore generated an adeno-associated virus (AAV)-vector that carries a 1.3-fold overlength HBV genome with a typical stop-codon mutation in the pre-core region and initiates the replication of HBeAg(-) HBV in mouse livers. Infection of C57BL/6 mice established persistent HBeAg(-) HBV-replication without any detectable anti-HBV immunity or liver damage. HBV-carrier mice were immunized with TherVacB, a therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine that uses a particulate HBV S and a core protein for prime vaccination, and a modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) for boost vaccination. The TherVacB immunization of HBeAg(+) and HBeAg(-) HBV carrier mice resulted in the effective induction of HBV-specific antibodies and the loss of HBsAg but only mild liver damage. Intrahepatic, HBV-specific CD8 T cells induced in HBeAg(-) mice expressed more IFNγ but showed similar cytolytic activity. This indicates that the loss of HBeAg improves the performance of therapeutic vaccination by enhancing non-cytolytic effector functions.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34451966/
Hepatitis B, C and D virus prevalence in children and adults in Mbeya Region, Tanzania: results from a cohort study 2002 - 2009
6 July 2021 | The Pan African Medical Journal
Guenter Froeschl, Michael Hoelscher, Lucas Henze Maganga, Inge Kroidl, Petra Clowes, Steffen Geis, Elmar Saathoff, Dieter Hoffmann, Ulrike Protzer, Arne Kroidl
L’Africa subsahariana presenta un’elevata prevalenza di infezioni da virus dell’epatite B (HBV). This analysis aims at elucidating the exposure to HBV across different age groups in Mbeya Region in Tanzania and determines prevalence of hepatitis C (HCV) and hepatitis delta antigen (HDV) infections.
https://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/39/174/full/
Screening auf Hepatitis B und C gehört jetzt zur Gesundheitsvorsorge
17 June 2021 | Der Hausarzt.DIGITAL
Ulrike Protzer
Kürzlich wurden Tests auf Hepatitis B und C in die Gesundheitsvorsorge (“Check-up”) aufgenommen. Versicherte ab 35 Jahren können sich einmalig auf diese beiden Erkrankungen untersuchen lassen. Dr. med. Ulrich Scharmer sprach darüber mit der Virologin Prof. Dr. med. Ulrike Protzer, München.
https://www.hausarzt.digital/medizin/praevention/screening-auf-hepatitis-b-und-c-gehoert-jetzt-zur-gesundheitsvorsorge-95051.html
PD-L1 Silencing in Liver Using siRNAs Enhances Efficacy of Therapeutic Vaccination for Chronic Hepatitis B
18 March 2021 | Biomolecules
Till Bunse, Anna D. Kosinska, Thomas Michler e Ulrike Protzer
Nell’infezione cronica da virus dell’epatite B (HBV), le cellule T virus-specifiche sono scarse e parzialmente disfunzionali. Therapeutic vaccination is a promising strategy to induce and activate new virus-specific T cells. In long-term or high-level HBV carriers, however, therapeutic vaccination by itself may not suffice to cure HBV. One reason is the impairment of antiviral T cells by immune checkpoints. In this study, we used small-interfering RNA (siRNA) in combination with a heterologous prime-boost therapeutic vaccination scheme (TherVacB) to interfere with a major immune checkpoint, the interaction of programmed death protein-1 (PD-1) and its ligand (PDL-1). In mice persistently replicating HBV after infection with an adeno-associated virus harboring the HBV genome, siRNA targeting PD-L1 resulted in a higher functionality of HBV-specific CD8+ T cells after therapeutic vaccination, and allowed for a more sustained antiviral effect and control of HBV in peripheral blood and in the liver. The antiviral effect was more pronounced if PD-L1 was down-regulated during prime than during boost vaccination. Thus, targeting PD-L1 using siRNA is a promising approach to enhance the efficacy of therapeutic vaccination and finally cure HBV.
https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/12/3/470