Patent ID: 7387882

Claim:
A method for assessing the ability of a vaccine composition to stimulate a T cell response, wherein the vaccine composition comprises one or more nucleic acid molecules encoding one or more antigens, wherein the one or more antigens comprise one or more T cell epitopes, said method comprising the steps of: (a) contacting human antigen presenting cells in culture with the vaccine composition, thereby, if one or more of the nucleic acid molecules encoding one or more antigens are taken up by the antigen presenting cells and the one or more antigens encoded by the one or more nucleic acid molecules are processed by the antigen presenting cells, producing one or more processed antigens; (b) contacting the antigen presenting cells with human T cell clones under conditions sufficient for the T cell clones to respond to the processed antigen; and (c) determining whether the T cell clones respond to the processed antigen; whereby, if the T cell clones respond to the processed antigen, the vaccine composition is capable of stimulating a T cell response; and, if the vaccine composition is capable of stimulating a T cell response; (d) assessing the vaccine composition in one or more animals or human subjects.