7:06AM Sangamo BioSci announces four data presentations of Novel ZFN therapeutic approaches to the treatment of HIV/AIDS (SGMO) 7.99 : Co presents datat which include clinical data from two Phase One trials of SB-728-T confirming mechanistic proof of concept and expansion of ZFN-CCR5-Modified cells in presence of actively replicating virus. The data demonstrate that SB-728-T is well-tolerated with only mild, reversible symptoms typical of infusion reactions. ZFN-CCR5-modified cells exhibited durable engraftment and persistence in the peripheral blood for over a year and behaved like normal, unmodified cells in their ability to traffic to the gut mucosa, an important reservoir of active HIV infection. Demonstration of up to a 45-fold selective expansion of ZFN-CCR5-modified T-cells in this tissue, which represents levels not previously observed in adoptive T-cell approaches, also suggests that the modified cells were resistant to HIV and establish the mechanistic proof of concept for this therapeutic approach. SB-728-T treatment was also demonstrated to improve the overall CD4 T-cell count in all subjects and the CD4:CD8 ratio, a measure of immunologic health, in multiple subjects. In addition, two subjects on a brief 12 week treatment interruption after SB-728-T treatment showed interesting patterns of HIV RNA appearance and decrease prior to re-institution of HAART. Finally, consistent manufacturing at clinical scale from different manufacturing centers demonstrate that the ZFN-CCR5-modified T-cell process is robust and reproducible.
surf's up......crikey
