HIV, AIDS Cure & Treatment: Vaccine to Prevent Human Immunodeficiency Virus Underway
NEW YORK - MAY 21: A researcher at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative laboratory works on samples at the lab May 21, 2010 in New York. Research into creating a AIDS vaccine continues at the Brooklyn borough outpost of IAVI, one of a consortium of laboratories around the world doing science in pursuit of a long-standing goal of immunologists around the world. Researchers at the lab published an important paper last year detailing a newly-discovered vulnerability on the surface of the HIV virus that causes AIDS, landmark work that could one day be crucial in creating a vaccine. (Photo : Chris Hondros/Getty Images) |
Business Standard
reports that the study was conducted by scientists at Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Crucell Holland BV, Johnson &
Johnson, and other collaborators.
The
researchers used monkeys to test their "heterologous prime-boost"
vaccine regimen, which initially prepares the immune system, before
adding another booster to increase their protection against the HIV
infection.
The Market Business
recaps that the research team has incorporated the vaccine in monkeys
by means of adenovirus 26, a common cold virus, to help develop
antibodies. A second vaccine containing a surface protein of HIV is then
added.
The two-step vaccination method showed
that 50 percent of the monkeys have been protected against simian
immunodeficiency virus (SIV), an HIV-like virus that affects monkeys.
Lead author Dan Barouch, director of the
Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at BIDMC and professor of
Medicine at Harvard Medical School, explains that the second vaccine has
boosted antibody response and has, therefore, increased protection.
He is positive that the results of the
study will "clear path forward for evaluating this HIV vaccine candidate
in humans", which, sadly has been making slow progress over the past 30
years due to lack of clinical involvement from pharmaceutical
companies.
Dr. Mary Marovich, director of the
vaccine research program of the National Institute for Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, has also been impressed, believing that the study
can help put an end to the epidemic.
Medical Daily
adds that coming up with an HIV vaccine is essentially difficult due to
the ability of the virus to kill the T-cells, the defenders of the
body's immune system. The HIV virus also mutates quickly, making it
impossible to be identified and detected by the immune system.
Source : latinoshealth
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