To: esammee who wrote (2961 ) 8/2/2006 12:57:36 AM From: esammee Read Replies (1) | Respond to In mid May we published a study that was presented at the American Association of Immunologists in Boston on our TAT triple zero 2 telomerase activator drug being developed through the joint venture between Geron and the BRC in Hong Kong. And the significance of this presentation was that once again the drug was shown to enhance telomerase activity in HIV restricted CD8 T cells from patients with HIV disease. The significance here, though, was that we demonstrated in an autologous setting that Patient A's CD8 cells when treated with the TAT 02 drug significantly reduced the viral level in the same patient's CD4 cells. So this work was done in an autologous manner and showed significant reduction in viral levels in 3 out of 3 donors. The reductions in viral titres produced by the infected cells were significant -- from 2 to 5 fold reduction. Also we demonstrated that the drug once again reproduces all the effects of telomerase gene transfer – namely, it increases the proliferative capacity of the CD8 cells, increases their secretion of interferon gamma when stimulated by HIV peptides, and, as I mentioned, dramatically increases viral inhibition of the infected CD4 cells.
