Paolo Palma

Talk Title: Illustrations of Distinct Vaccine-Induced Immune Responses in Vulnerable Pediatric Populations

I have been the principal Investigator of a number of Research Projects regarding paediatric patients affected by primary and acquired immune deficiencies. After my graduation in Medicine I have been always interested in understanding the basis of the primary and acquired immune deficiencies in children. During my career I’ve been following several students and MDs in their research projects and now I am the leader of a group of young MDs and PhD researchers at Children Hospital Bambino Gesù.

In the last 20 years ,I have been working on the immune responses in different models of immune deficiencies. In 2009 I took the opportunity to investigate the biomarkers of immune responses upon the H1N1 vaccination in HIV infected children. In 2012 I investigated the suboptimal immune responses of Kidney transplanted patients under immune suppressive therapy and HIV infected children upon the seasonal . From 2008 I am the PI of the PEDVAC trial. With this study we evaluated for the first time the safety and the immunogenicity of a DNA therapeutic vaccination in vertically HIV-infected children. This activity has produced a highly quoted publication in International Peer reviewed Journals (see list of publications below) and has been an important instrument for the development of international collaborations in the field of Paediatric AIDS. I am a lead immunological investigator of a multi-institutional international project known as Epiical (Early-treated Perinatally HIV-infected Individuals: Improving Children’s Actual Life with Novel Immunotherapeutic Strategies), to induce HIV viral remission through novel immunotherapeutic strategies (www.epiical.org). The current application builds logically on my prior work. I have been collaborating with Prof. Merlin Robb in the last 5 years in developing and optimizing the study protocol HURRICANE (GRANT_NUMBER: U01AI135941) which aims to evaluate the possibility to target HIV reservoirs in children with HIVIS DNA and MVA-CMDR vaccines. I’m currently co-PI in 3 different NIH grants. The NIH/NIAID U19 (U19AI168643) grant entitled Immune Development in Early Life (IDEAL) shapes vaccine response, respiratory infectious disease and asthma led by Prof. Ofer Levy, for which I serve as the responsible of the Clinical Core activities; the Martin Delaney Collaborative Project PAVE ( Pediatric and Adolescents HIV Virus Eradication) which I serve as co-leader with Prof. Ann Charoudi of research focus 3 which aims to identify Immune-targeted strategies to eliminate virus reservoirs (GRANT_NUMBER: 1R01AI127347-01); the HVRRICANE project co-leaded with Merlin Robb (GRANT_NUMBER: U01AI135941) which aims to explore the effect of therapeutic vaccine on viral reservoir based on a HIV-DNA priming MVA boosting regimen.

Ongoing and recently completed projects that I would like to highlight include:

Ongoing research support

• PAVE (Pediatric Adolescent Virus Elimination) – Martin Delaney Collaboratory Palma P. co-leader of Research focus 3 8/16/2021-4/30/2026 GRANT NUMBER: UM1AI154566

• Targeting HIV reservoirs in children with HIVIS DNA and MVA-CMDR vaccines National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Bethesda) 2018-02-01 to 2023-01-31| GRANT_NUMBER: U01AI135941 Palma P. co-PI with Merlin Robb from Henry Jackson Foundation

• NIH/NIAID U19 (U19AI168643) grant entitled Immune Development in Early Life (IDEAL) shapes vaccine response, respiratory infectious disease and asthma for which I serve as the responsible of the Clinical Core activities and member of the steering group.

• Resources Grant, PENTA-ID, Palma P. (Wp leader of the Immunological Workpackage) 15/02/2020-15/02/2024. EPIICAL www.epiical.org (Early-treated Perinatally HIV-infected Individuals: Improving Children’s Actual Life with Novel Immunotherapeutic Strategies)

• NIH- R01 GRANT_NUMBER: 1R01AI127347-01 Immunity and HIV persistence in perinatal HIV infection. Palma P.( responsible for AIM2) 01/07/2016 -2021

• Resources Grant from Children Hospital, ‘Bambino Gesu’. Palma P. (PI) 02/02/2017- up to now Identification of transcriptomic profiles predicting immunity to infectious diseases and vaccines.

• Resources Grant from Fondazione “Bambino Gesu” to study vaccinations in children with acquired immunodeficiency status. Palma P. (PI) 02/01/2017- up to now

Completed Research Support

• European Molecular Biology organization (EMBO) Palma P. (PI) 01-01-2005 to 01-01-2006) Molecular mechanisms of primary HIV immune response and prime boost strategies to induce long term memory”

• Italian Institute of Health (ISS) Palma P. (co-Inv) 01-01-2006 to 01-06-2008 Charachterization of the B cell responses in children with acquired Immune Deficiencies.

• Resources Grant, from Children Hospital, ‘Bambino Gesu’ Palma P. (PI) 02/02/2014-02/02/2016

• EVaPID-Enhance Vaccine protection in Primary and Acquired immune deficiencies. The goal of this study is to evaluate correlates of vaccine protection in groups of immunocompromised children.

• Resources Grant, PENTA-ID, Palma P. (Wp leader of the Immunological Workpackage) 15/02/2016-15/02/2020. EPIICAL www.epiical.org opens in new tab/window (Early-treated Perinatally HIV-infected Individuals: Improving Children’s Actual Life with Novel Immunotherapeutic Strategies)