Genital Herpes Vaccine

"Herpes Vaccine HSV529 Shows Favorable Results in Phase 1 Trial", Press Release, May 30, 2019

"A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Phase 1 Study of a Replication-Defective Herpes Simplex Virus 2 Vaccine, HSV529, in Adults With or Without HSV Infection",
The Journal of Infectious Diseases, May 6, 2019

"MTS22 – David Knipe – Herpes Simplex Virus 2 (HSV-2)," Meet The Scientist, March 31, 2009, Podcast

"Acambis initiates pre-clinical testing with herpes vaccine from Harvard Medical School", Press Release, February 25, 2008

"Herpes Vaccine Developed at HMS Licensed for Preclinical Trials", Focus, March 7, 2008.

“Sanofi Pasteur Completes the Acquisition of Acambis”, Press Release, September 25, 2008

How can you help our genital herpes vaccine research?

Thank you for your interest in making a gift to the Knipe Lab Research Fund.

Gifts can be made using the Harvard Online Giving Form for Harvard Medical School. To ensure that your gift is directed to the Knipe Lab, please choose "Other" in the "Select a Fund" drop-down menu and enter “Knipe Lab Research Fund (520-362612)” in the "Other Fund Name" field.  Your gift will then be directed to the Knipe Lab Research Fund.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your generous support of our research.

Publications on the Vaccine

Da Costa, X.J., C.A. Jones and D.M. Knipe. 1999. Immunization against genital herpes with a vaccine virus that has defects in productive and latent infection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 96:6994-6998. (pdf)

Da Costa, X.J., M.F. Kramer, J. Zhu, M.A. Brockman and D.M. Knipe. 2000. Construction, phenotypic analysis and immunogenicity of a UL5/UL29 double deletion mutant of herpes simplex virus 2. Journal of Virology 74:7963-7971. (pdf)

Hoshino, Y., S.K. Dalai, K. Wang, L. Pesnicak, T.Y. Lau, D.M. Knipe, J.I. Cohen, and S.E. Straus. 2005. Comparative efficacy and immunogenicity of replication-defective, recombinant glycoprotein, and DNA vaccines for herpes simplex virus 2 infections in mice and guinea pigs. Journal of Virology 79:410-418. (pdf)

Dudek, T. and D. M. Knipe.  2006.  Replication-defective viruses as vaccines and vaccine vectors.  Virology 344:230-239.  This paper reviews the use of replication-defective viruses as vaccines. (pdf)

van Lint, A.L., E. Torres-Lopez, D.M. Knipe. 2007. Immunization with a replication-defective herpes simplex virus-2 mutant reduces herpes simplex virus-1 infection and prevents ocular disease.  Virology 368:227-31.  This paper shows that dl5-29 can protect mice against HSV-1 infection also. (pdf)

Dudek, T., L. Mathews, D.M. Knipe.  2007. Disruption of the UL41 Gene in the Herpes simplex virus 2 dl5-29 mutant increases its immunogenicity and protective capacity in a murine model of genital herpes. Virology 372:165-75. (pdf)

Hoshino, Y., L. Pesnicak, K.C. Dowdell, J. Lacayo, T. Dudek, D.M. Knipe, S.E. Straus, J.I. Cohen.  2008.  Comparison of immunogenicity and protective efficacy of genital herpes vaccine candidates herpes simplex virus 2 dl5-29 and dl5-29-41L in mice and guinea pigs.  Vaccine 26:4034-40. (pdf)

Diaz, F.M. and D.M. Knipe.  2016.  Protection from Genital Herpes Disease, Seroconversion, and Latent Infection in a Non-lethal Murine Genital infection Model by Immunization with an HSV-2 Replication-Defective Mutant Virus.  Virology 488:61-67.