International attention for Tripep's new immunotherapy against HIV


International attention for Tripep's new immunotherapy against HIV 

At the beginning of 2008, Tripep received a patent for a new treatment for HIV.
Now the international journal New Scientist Today,  popular science publisher
and the well renowned American scientific journal ”Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences” (PNAS) both comment on a scientific work from Tripep
published in this week's issue of PNAS . The research article was written in
collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet and describes a totally new way of
attacking HIV. In the article, the researchers describe the further development
of Tripep's RAS-technology - which was the basis for the patent - and how"molecular immune-adapters" make otherwise superfluous natural antibodies into
attackers of HIV and HIV-infected cells. 

All people have antibodies against the sugar structure gal(α1,3)gal which among
others is expressed on the contagious intestinal bacteria Salmonella and
Escherichia coli. Between 2-9 per cent of all our antibodies are directed
against this sugar structure and are called natural antibodies. In the PNAS
article the researchers describe how they chemically coupled gal(α1,3)gal to
synthetically produced chains of amino acids, so called peptides, which in turn
bind to HIV and HIV-infected cells. In the article the researchers show that
with these molecular immune-adapters they can redirect very potent natural
antibodies to fight HIV and HIV-infected cells. 

”We have now shown that the technique works and that it can be applied as a
completely new immunotherapy against HIV. Now we shall fine tune our peptides so
that they become as potent as possible before we continue with clinical tests on
humans” says Professor Anders Vahlne, who also is head of Research at Tripep AB.


Using other peptides with this technique it would also be possible to redirect
natural antibodies against the sugar structure gal(α1,3)gal to combat other
infections as well as cancer. The patent for these molecular immune-adapters is
owned by Tripep AB.


For more information, please contact:
Jan Nilsson, CEO, Tripep AB		                         
Tel: +46 8 449 84 80, mobile phone: +46 70 466 31 63               
E-mail: jan.nilsson@tripep.se		                        

Anders Vahlne, Head of Research, Tripep AB
Tel: +46 8 5858 1313, mobile phone: +46 709 28 05 28
E-mail: anders.vahlne@ki.se

About Tripep
Tripep develops drugs against chronic disease based on proprietary and other
parties' patented and patent pending technologies. Tripep is focusing on the
following research projects; wound healing therapy ChronSeal® and a therapeutic
vaccine against Hepatitis C, named ChronVac-C®, plus the RAS® technology
platform. The Tripep share is admitted to trade on First North. Remium AB is
Certified Adviser for Tripep AB.  For more information, please refer to the
company's website: www.tripep.se.

In the event of any discrepancy between the Swedish and English versions of this
press release, the Swedish version will take precedence.

Attachments

08272093.pdf