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Animal Studies Indicate Vacc-C5 Generates Immune Responses to HIV, Similar to Those in HIV Patients who Naturally Suppress the Virus

OSLO, NORWAY--(Marketwire - May 29, 2012) - Bionor Pharma ASA (OSLO: BIONOR)

News Summary

Bionor Pharma ASA (OSLO: BIONOR) announced today that the first study of Bionor Pharma's Vacc-C5 is now approved to begin at Oslo University Hospital. Vacc-C5 is a therapeutic HIV vaccine developed to slow down or stop induction of immune hyperactivation, a feature that drives the production of HIV and is damaging the immune system, leading to AIDS. Vacc-C5 also may have the potential to be a preventive vaccine, alone or in combination with Vacc-4x.

The phase I/II study will use Vacc-C5 at three different dose levels, in order to evaluate safety and provide a determination for the optimal dose of the vaccine, when given intradermally (in the skin) or intramuscularly.

"The pre-clinical studies of Vacc-C5 in rabbits, and sheep, as well as data confirming an association between high antibody levels and slow progression of HIV in humans have generated considerable interest," said Dag Kvale, MD, PhD, Principal Investigator at Oslo University Hospital. "We look forward to see how people living with HIV respond when on Vacc-C5."

The study seeks to recruit 36 patients who have been infected with HIV for at least one year. Study participants must have been stable on antiretroviral therapy (ART, traditional HIV medicine) for at least six months with a viral load of less than 50 copies per milliliter. The primary endpoint of the trial is to evaluate safety of the vaccine at three different dose levels. Secondary endpoints include measuring specific antibody and T-cell responses to Vacc-C5 and to evaluate T-cell activation markers. Vacc-C5 will be given in combination with two different adjuvants, (that enhance the immune response), either GM-CSF (Granulocyte Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor) or Alhydrogel (an aluminum-based treatment).

How Vacc-C5 is considered to Work, in Comparison to Vacc-4x Vacc-C5 generates antibodies based on modified, manufactured (synthetic) peptides from the C5 region (of gp 120) at the HIV-virus surface. Data suggest that anti-C5 antibodies may play a crucial role for Natural Viral Suppressors, a group of people who are able to control the HIV infection without the need of HIV medication.

Bionor Pharma has filed a patent application covering Vacc-C5.

The further strategy is to use Vacc-C5 in combination with Vacc-4x since Vacc-4x already has via T-cell (killer cell) responses shown to lower the viral load set point (stabilized virus level) by statistically significant levels compared to placebo.

More:
First Human Clinical Study of HIV Vaccine Vacc-C5 Approved to Begin

Iran claimed on Tuesday to have come up with an anti-virus programme against "Flame," extraordinarily sophisticated malware that hit its servers and deployed various spying modules, apparently at the behest of a foreign power.

"Tools to recognise and clean this malware have been developed and, as of today, they will be available for those (Iranian) organisations and companies who want it," Maher, a computer emergency response team coordination centre in Iran's telecommunications ministry, said on its website.

Flame, a crafty volume of code that can steal files, take screenshots, activate computer microphones to record conversations, log keystrokes and carry out other activities controlled remotely, was identified this week by leading anti-virus firms around the world.

Maher said Flame was undetectable by 43 different anti-virus programmes it tested, forcing it to come up with its own defence after "months of research." It did not give details of how its Flame-killer worked.

Iran appeared to be the main target of the worm-like malware, though it was also detected in other regions, including Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Sudan and Syria.

The virus hit Iran's oil ministry servers in April, forcing authorities to shut them down.

"Experts from Maher... have said that the theft of large volumes of data in recent weeks was caused by Flame," the Fars news agency reported.

Anti-virus experts said Flame was many times more sophisticated than Stuxnet, a virus that in 2010 infected computers running Iran's sensitive uranium enrichment, knocking out hundreds of centrifuges, or a cousin to Stuxnet, Duqu, which struck in 2011.

The staggering complexity of all three of these viruses suggested a nation-state was responsible, with suspicion falling on the United States or Israel.

Flame is "actively being used as a cyber weapon attacking entities in several countries," a top Russian anti-virus software firm, Kaspersky Lab, said in a statement late on Monday, describing its purpose as "cyberespionage."

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Middle East Online

AFP Tuesday, May 29, 2012

TEHRAN - Iran claimed on Tuesday to have come up with an anti-virus programme against "Flame," extraordinarily sophisticated malware that hit its servers and deployed various spying modules, apparently at the behest of a foreign power.

"Tools to recognise and clean this malware have been developed and, as of today, they will be available for those (Iranian) organisations and companies who want it," Maher, a computer emergency response team coordination centre in Iran's telecommunications ministry, said on its website.

Flame, a crafty volume of code that can steal files, take screenshots, activate computer microphones to record conversations, log keystrokes and carry out other activities controlled remotely, was identified this week by leading anti-virus firms around the world.

Maher said Flame was undetectable by 43 different anti-virus programmes it tested, forcing it to come up with its own defence after "months of research." It did not give details of how its Flame-killer worked.

Iran appeared to be the main target of the worm-like malware, though it was also detected in other regions, including Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Sudan and Syria.

The virus hit Iran's oil ministry servers in April, forcing authorities to shut them down.

"Experts from Maher... have said that the theft of large volumes of data in recent weeks was caused by Flame," the Fars news agency reported.

Anti-virus experts said Flame was many times more sophisticated than Stuxnet, a virus that in 2010 infected computers running Iran's sensitive uranium enrichment, knocking out hundreds of centrifuges, or a cousin to Stuxnet, Duqu, which struck in 2011.

The staggering complexity of all three of these viruses suggested a nation-state was responsible, with suspicion falling on the United States or Israel.

Read more:
Iran readies anti-virus for 'Flame' spy malware

By Stephen Glover

PUBLISHED: 18:21 EST, 28 May 2012 | UPDATED: 05:34 EST, 29 May 2012

A stranger to our shores watching Tony Blair at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday would have got the impression of a reasonable and decent man who had unaccountably been abused and mistreated by a his word feral Press.

If I had not lived through the Blair years, and seen the way in which newspapers were manipulated and sometimes lied to by his formidable Press machine, I might have been persuaded by this suave and confident performance.

Much as I admire Lord Justice Leveson and the sardonic Robert Jay, QC, who asks most of the questions, I am afraid that either as a result of ignorance or excessive indulgence, their interrogation of the former prime minister was terribly lame. He was not put on the spot over many issues where he certainly has a case to answer.

Suave: Tony Blair was a confident witness at the Leveson Inquiry, and unlike other witnesses received very soft interrogation

For example, he was not examined as to why he and his turbulent spin doctor Alastair Campbell who has inexplicably been treated with the softest of kid gloves by this inquiry aided and abetted the bid for the Daily Express by the pornographer Richard Desmond in 2000. At that time, the Express was a New Labour-supporting paper, and Mr Blair believed Mr Desmonds assurances hed keep it so.

No questions were put about why he had permitted Mr Campbell to oversee the crucial September 2002 dossier about Iraq, which convinced many people that Saddam Hussein constituted a danger to this country. Equally, he was not required to justify his Press Secretarys fraudulent second dossier partly based unattributably on a long-out-of-date university doctoral thesis published in February 2003.

He was not asked why, in an unprecedented move, he had allowed his spin doctor to give orders to senior civil servants, and was not made to explain why Mr Campbell had connived in the politicisation of the civil service by installing Labour placemen as departmental press officers answerable to him.

More here:
Tony Blair at Leveson Inquiry: Kid gloves and damning questions ex-PM WASN'T asked

Todays guest blogger is Dan Reimold, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Tampa who maintains the student journalism industry blogCollege Media Matters.

Over the past academic year, there has been an explosion of new or renewed campus activities, pop culture phenomena, tech trends, generational shifts, and social movements started by or significantly impacting students.Most can be summed up in a single word.

What did college students do this year? They imitated memes, pinned away, got shmacked and reminded each other, YOLO. (Kevork Djansezian - Getty Images) As someone who monitors student life and student media daily, Ive noticed a small number of words appearing more frequently, prominently or controversially during the past two semesters on campuses nationwide.Some were brand-new.Others were redefined or reached a tipping point of interest or popularity.And still others showed a remarkable staying power, carrying over from semesters and years past.

I've selected 15 as finalists for what I am calling the 2011-2012 College Word of the Year Contest. Okay, a few are actually acronyms or short phrases.But altogether the terms whether short-lived or seemingly permanent offer a unique glimpse at what students participated in, talked about, fretted over, and fought for this past fall and spring.

As Time Magazines Tour confirms, The words we coalesce around as a society say so much about who we are. The language is a mirror that reflects our collective soul."

Let's take a quick look in the collegiate rearview mirror. In alphabetical order, here are my College Word of the Year finalists.

1) Boomerangers: Right after commencement, a growing number of college graduates are heading home, diploma in hand and futures on hold. They are the boomerangers, young 20-somethings who are spending their immediate college afterlife in hometown purgatory.A majority move back into their childhood bedroom due to poor employment or graduate school prospects or to save money so they can soon travel internationally, engage in volunteer work or launch their own business.

Grads at the University of Alabama in 2011. (Butch Dill - Associated Press) A brief homestay has long been an option favored by some fresh graduates, but its recently reemerged in the media as a defining activity of the current student generation.

Graduation means something completely different than it used to 30 years ago, student columnist Madeline Hennings wrote in January for the Collegiate Times at Virginia Tech. At my age, my parents were already engaged, planning their wedding, had jobs, and thinking about starting a family.Today, the economy is still recovering, and more students are moving back in with mom and dad.

2) Drunkorexia: This five-syllable word has become the most publicized new disorder impacting college students. Many students, researchers and health professionals consider it a dangerous phenomenon. Critics, meanwhile, dismiss it as a media-driven faux-trend. And others contend it is nothing more than a fresh label stamped onto an activity that students have been carrying out for years.

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College Word of the Year Contest contenders: Drunkorexia, shmacked and FOMO