Leading DNA vaccine discovery company, Inovio Biomedical Corporation announced that their Scientific Advisory Board Chairman, Dr. David B. Weiner, highlighted advances in the company’s leading electroporation-delivered SynCon™ DNA vaccines at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 Conference in Paris.

The study, led by Dr. Weiner’s team at the University of Pennsylvania, included collaborators from Inovio and Merck. The team previously reported that DNA vaccines delivered using electroporation induced dramatic increases in T-cell and antibody-based immune responses. This collaborative study was the first to directly compare a DNA plasmid-electroporation platform with a recombinant Ad5 vector in an SIV model in non-human primates.

Dr. Weiner presented pre-clinical data showing higher levels of immune responses induced by Inovio’s DNA vaccines than to those induced by the recombinant adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) vector. Historically, recombinant Ad5 vector has been shown to be one of the most potent viral vectors for vaccines.

In his presentation, Dr. Weiner also