Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of Therapeutic Advances in Vaccines. We are delighted to work with a highly regarded International Editorial Board and with SAGE Publications on this exciting new title, launched with the current May 2013 issue.

The aim of Therapeutic Advances in Vaccines will be to publish high-quality editorials, reviews and original research articles relating to innovative development of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine strategies. Key elements of the journal include a rapid but rigorous peer review and publication process. As vaccine research continues to evolve with many therapeutic vaccines showing promise and on their way through clinical development, we believe that the launch of this title is timely and will provide an important vehicle to disseminate the latest opinion and evidence to a broad audience. In this endeavor, the team of Associate Editors will be ably assisted by an International Editorial Board and will bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to guarantee the highest standards of publication.

We welcome you to submit your original research manuscript to us. This journal aims to be the choice for rapid publication of results from well-designed clinical studies as opposed to the rather long lag time associated with many existing journals. In this context, we want to encourage the reporting of preliminary data as well as negative clinical studies. We will also publish observational studies and basic research with clinical relevance.

Invited articles include editorials (analysis of evidence and clinical opinions), reviews (systematic, guidance, focused) and perspective reviews on prophylactic as well as therapeutic human vaccines (for infectious and noninfectious diseases), adjuvants and vectors. In addition, we welcome Letters to the Editors which can relate a particular viewpoint, or to discuss any unique case or case series, backed up with a current literature search on the topic. A first decision on a paper is usually reached within 2-3 weeks. Following acceptance, any article will be available free online (registration details may be found online and in this issue) within 7 weeks on the award-winning SAGE journal online platform. There are no publication fees or page charges for accepted papers.

Therapeutic Advances in Vaccines will be the 14th title in SAGE’s Therapeutic Advances series, following titles in Cardiovascular Disease, Respiratory Disease, Neurological Disorders, Gastroenterology, Medical Oncology, Urology, Musculoskeletal Disease, Drug Safety, Chronic Disease, Hematology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Psychopharmacology and Infectious Disease. The latter, launched in February this year, will complement this title to some extent and therefore may be of interest to readers of this journal.

We will make the journal freely available on Stanford University’s Highwire platform, where it will benefit from high visibility and, following a short interval, articles will be made available on PubMed Central with retrospective indexing of articles published since the journal’s inception. We will strive to provide the highest standards and we aim together with the Publisher to make the journal an attractive option for authors seeking a focused and relevant home for their articles. We will be publishing bi-monthly from May 2013, with 6 issues each year (5 issues in 2013), both in print and online. Articles will be published ‘Online First’ ahead of publication in an issue.

Please join us in making this journal a timely and successful addition to the literature on vaccine research. Our committed in-house editor, Alessandro Baliani (alex.baliani@sagepub.co.uk), will ensure that manuscript submission and peer review function smoothly and rapidly and will be pleased to discuss the suitability of your manuscript for the journal or answer any questions you may have.

We encourage you to submit your manuscript online, at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tav

We look forward to reading your contributions, and to establishing Therapeutic Advances in Vaccines as a leading journal in its field.

May 2013

The Associate Editors

Christopher S. Ambrose

Dr Ambrose is a Vice President, Medical & Scientific Affairs at MedImmune (Maryland, MD, USA), the biologics unit of AstraZeneca. Dr Ambrose joined MedImmune in 2002 and has worked in various roles in medical affairs, clinical development, and brand management.

In his current role, he leads the post-approval medical activities related to the live attenuated influenza vaccine and palivizumab, an anti-RSV monoclonal antibody. He has authored more than 40 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. Dr Ambrose holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia as well as a medical degree and master of business administration degree from Vanderbilt University.

Jayanta Bhattacharya

Dr Bhattacharya is a Principal Investigator at the HIV Vaccine Translational Research laboratory, Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI)—an autono- mous institute under the Department of Biotechnology (Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt of India)—in Gurgaon, India.

Prior to joining THSTI in Gurgaon, he worked as an Assistant Director at the Department of Molecular Virology at the National AIDS Research Institute, Pune (Indian Council of Medical Research, Ministry of health and Family Welfare, Govt of India), India. He completed his postdoctoral research in retrovirology from the University of Massachusetts Medical School (Worcester, MA, USA) where he specialised in HIV-1 envelope biology.

His research focuses on understanding the vulnerabilities in Human Immunodeficiency virus Type 1 (HIV-1) envelope protein in natural infections that can be exploited to design immunogens to elicit broad and potent neutralizing antibodies. In addition, he is working to identify the presence of broad and potent neutralizing antibodies in asymptomatic individuals chronically infected with HIV-1, who are not on anti-retroviral therapies. The identification of unique individuals harbouring such antibodies in natural infection provides the basis to target ancestral germ-line versions of the antibodies and specific regions of the viral envelope, allowing the design of suitable immunogens able to elicit similar protective immune responses.

Christopher B. Fox

Dr Fox is a Senior Scientist at Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI, Seattle, WA, USA).

He joined IDRI in 2007 as a formulation engineer and has played an integral role in developing, characterizing, and manufacturing cGMP vaccine adjuvant formulations for a variety of infectious diseases, including leishmaniasis, malaria, tuberculosis, and pandemic influenza.

Dr Fox has authored or coauthored 30 publications on the development or characterization of formulations for adjuvants or drugs. He is principal investigator on a cooperative agreement from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority of the US government to transfer emulsion adjuvant manufacturing technology to the Cantacuzino Institute in Bucharest, Romania, to facilitate pandemic influenza vaccine production. He has also participated in technology transfer projects in Brazil and India, in addition to serving as a faculty member for the Advanced Vaccinology Course in India (2010-2013) and for the online Latin American Diploma on Vaccinology. Dr Fox obtained his PhD in Bioengineering at the University of Utah and his BSc at Utah State University.

E. David G. McIntosh

Dr E. David G. McIntosh AM is a paediatrician, Vaccinologist and infectious disease specialist. Currently in Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics he is the Global Scientific Affairs Senior Expert. David is an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London, and an Honorary Professor at the Scientific Center for Children’s Health, Russian Academy of Medical Science, Moscow. On 13th June 2011 in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List he was appointed as a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia, within the Australian Honours System. He holds the following qualifications: MBBS, MPH, LLM, PhD, FAFPHM, FRACP, FRCP&CH, FFPM, DRCOG, DCH, Dip Pharm Med.

Previously, in Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Dr McIntosh worked on the 7- and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, the intra-nasal cold-adapted influenza vaccine, the antibiotics tigecycline and piperacillin-tazobactam, and the anti-parasitic agent moxidectin, under development for the treatment of River Blindness (onchocerciasis) in Africa.

He originally trained as a medical doctor in Sydney, Australia, and specialised in paediatric infectious diseases and public health. His early work was in Papua New Guinea, the Northern Territory of Australia, Peru, Argentina, New Zealand and the UK.

His early research was on early-onset Group B streptococcal infection at the King George V Hospital for Mothers and Babies in Sydney. His MPH treatise involved the study of chronic suppurative otitis media in Australian Aborigines and his PhD thesis described the molecular epidemiology of hepatitis B virus in recent immigrant families to Australia. He co-authored the landmark 50-year follow-up of the original congenital rubella syndrome patient cohort. His postdoctoral work was on gene therapy for hepatitis, in the Department of Medicine at Imperial College, in London, UK.

Dr McIntosh completed a four-year Higher Medical Training period in Pharmaceutical Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians, London, and is on the Specialist Register of the UK as a Pharmaceutical Physician and as a Paediatrician. He has written chapters on hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccination, pneumococcal vaccination, paediatric clinical pharmacology, paediatric clinical trials, post-infectious sequelae and long-term consequences of infectious diseases, efflux pumps and respiratory infections. In May 2012 he obtained another post-graduate degree, a Master’s degree in Medical Law and Ethics (LLM), the dissertation for which was on the subject of maternal immunisation.

Peter L. Stern

Professor Peter L. Stern is at Institute of Cancer Studies, Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, University of Manchester, UK. He trained at University College, London, UK, obtaining his BSc and PhD. He has previously held research positions as staff scientist at the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory, Cambridge, UK, EMBO Fellow at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, CRC Fellow and Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College, University of Oxford, UK, Lecturer at the Medical School, University of Liverpool, UK, and Visiting Professor at the Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Since 1989, at the University of Manchester, there have been two themes of research. One has been the investigation of shared properties of developmental tissues and cancer cells with a view to identifying new targets for diagnosis, prognosis or therapy. 5T4 oncofoetal glycoprotein was discovered while searching for molecules with invasive properties likely to be shared by trophoblast and cancer cells. 5T4 expression has been shown to influence adhesion, cytoskeletal organization and motility, properties which might account for its association with poorer clinical outcome in some cancers. A principle goal has been to harness immunity to 5T4 for cancer therapy; there are currently three commercially driven approaches including a vaccine, an antibody targeted super-antigen therapy and an antibody targeting of a tubulin inhibitor in late phase clinical trial or in clinical development. Current studies are focused on 5T4 function and as a target in ovarian carcinoma and pre B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The second field has focused on Human papillomavirus (HPV), where activities have been directly related to the development of prophylactic and therapeutic treatments for patients with HPV-associated anogenital disease. This has included the design and delivery of clinical and laboratory analyses of clinical trials of vaccines and other immunotherapies. On-going work is focused on immune factors in HPV associated head and neck cancer.