After more than 30 years of attempts, the search for an HIV vaccine may have made gratifying progress. If it is not treated in time, the vaccine can cause AIDS. ABC News reported that preliminary data from early clinical trials conducted by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California indicate that this new HIV vaccine is promising.
“These are very early studies, but they are still very interesting.” William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious disease at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, did not participate in the clinical trial.
Although it may be necessary to further test potential vaccines in larger studies, experts hope that this vaccine will succeed if other vaccines fail.
Schaffner said: “This is a very novel approach to vaccine development,” he described basic vaccine technology as the frontier science of the 21st century.
When it was discovered in the early 1980s that HIV was the cause of AIDS, researchers believed that vaccines against this virus would be discovered soon, as would diseases such as measles, chickenpox and hepatitis B. In addition, the then US Secretary of Health Margaret Heckler (Margaret Heckler) predicted in 1984 that the vaccine would be on the market within two years. The researchers soon discovered that there were more obstacles than they initially thought.
HIV is a rapidly mutating virus, so it has become a moving target for vaccines. HIV also has many different subtypes, so a vaccine that provides protection against one subtype of HIV may not be effective against another subtype. The new research aims to solve these difficulties by developing a vaccine that can help the body produce a wide range of neutralizing antibodies. Researchers hope that it can stimulate the human immune system to resist multiple HIV strains and mutations.
CEO Dr. Mark Feinberg said: “The basis of this study is to identify a subset of HIV-infected individuals who produce so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies during the course of infection. This basically means that these antibodies can effectively block the development of different HIV strains. Infection.” IAVI
A phase 1 clinical trial that is still in progress includes 48 healthy adults who received two doses of the vaccine or placebo two months apart. Preliminary data shows that 97% of vaccinated people initially show signs that their immune system can produce the aforementioned broad range of antibodies.
Schaffner said: “Broadly neutralizing antibodies are important because this virus can mutate so quickly that infected people need guns instead of ordinary rifles to prevent a large number of different types of HIV.” HIV vaccines The research and development is in sharp contrast to the research and development of the covid-19 vaccine. The research and development of the covid-19 vaccine is gaining momentum and we are trying to develop more vaccines soon.
Researchers at IAVI and Scripps are collaborating with companies such as Moderna to consider mRNA technology for covid-19 vaccine development. Although the potential HIV vaccines being studied in this study are not based on mRNA technology, researchers are considering how to use this technology to develop HIV vaccines in the future, ABC News concluded.
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