I'm not sure if this was posted already. It's pretty long and talks about different vaccine approaches. Here is the part about Generex
A combinatorial epitope approach was also used in the development of the Ii-Key peptide vaccine, and implies the use of a vaccine technology based on hybrid peptides, as proposed by EpiVax, Inc. company in collaboration with Generex Biotechnology Corp (Kallinteris et al., 2006; Wu, 2020). The Ii-Key peptide technology, already adopted for cancer vaccine development, is used to overcome the weakness of presentation of MHC class II epitope vaccine peptides (Kissick et al., 2014). This method assumes that “hybrid molecules” can enhance CD4+ T cell response: the hybrid is composed by N-terminus of MHC II epitopes covalently linked, through a simple polymethylene spacer (or other chemical linkers), to the C terminus of the Ii-Key peptide (four amino acids: LRMK). In vitro, this chimeric peptide exhibited an enhanced presentation of the antigens of about 200 times in comparison with the epitope alone. In vivo, the T- helper cell response is enhanced up to 8 times (measured with ELISPOT test) (Kallinteris et al., 2006); by combining Ii-Key peptide technology with the computational tool for vaccine design, iVAX (De Groot et al., 2020), the resulting vaccine will blend short peptide sequences of the virus with Ii-Key peptides. The aim is to provide broad T cell-mediated protection against SARS-CoV-2 avoiding, at the same time, antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) (Tirado and Yoon, 2003).
A combinatorial epitope approach was also used in the development of the Ii-Key peptide vaccine, and implies the use of a vaccine technology based on hybrid peptides, as proposed by EpiVax, Inc. company in collaboration with Generex Biotechnology Corp (Kallinteris et al., 2006; Wu, 2020). The Ii-Key peptide technology, already adopted for cancer vaccine development, is used to overcome the weakness of presentation of MHC class II epitope vaccine peptides (Kissick et al., 2014). This method assumes that “hybrid molecules” can enhance CD4+ T cell response: the hybrid is composed by N-terminus of MHC II epitopes covalently linked, through a simple polymethylene spacer (or other chemical linkers), to the C terminus of the Ii-Key peptide (four amino acids: LRMK). In vitro, this chimeric peptide exhibited an enhanced presentation of the antigens of about 200 times in comparison with the epitope alone. In vivo, the T- helper cell response is enhanced up to 8 times (measured with ELISPOT test) (Kallinteris et al., 2006); by combining Ii-Key peptide technology with the computational tool for vaccine design, iVAX (De Groot et al., 2020), the resulting vaccine will blend short peptide sequences of the virus with Ii-Key peptides. The aim is to provide broad T cell-mediated protection against SARS-CoV-2 avoiding, at the same time, antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) (Tirado and Yoon, 2003).
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