AIDS vaccine
AIDS Vaccine Research: Better By Design?
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins

Caption: eOD-GT8 60mer nanoparticle based on the engineered protein eOD-GT8. Yellow shows where eOD-GT8 binds antibodies; white is the protein surface outside the binding site; light blue indicates the sugars attached to the protein; dark blue is the nanoparticle core to which eOD-GT8 has been fused.
Credit: Sergey Menis and William Schief, The Scripps Research Institute
A while ago, I highlighted a promising new approach for designing a vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of AIDS. This strategy would “take the immune system to school” and teach it a series of lessons using several vaccine injections—each consisting of a different HIV proteins designed to push the immune system, step by step, toward the production of protective antibodies capable of fending off virtually all HIV strains. But a big unanswered question was whether most people actually possess the specific type of precursor immune cells that that can be taught to produce antibodies that kill HIV.
Now, we may have the answer [1]. In a study published in the journal Science, a research team, partly supported by NIH, found that the majority of people do indeed have these precursor cells. While the total number of these cells in each person may be low, this may be all that’s needed for the immune system to recognize a vaccine. Based in part on these findings, researchers plan to launch a Phase 1 clinical trial in human volunteers to see if their latest engineered protein can find these precursor cells and begin coaxing them through the complicated process of producing protective antibodies.
Study Suggests Alternative Approach to AIDS Vaccine
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins

Caption: A decoy protein that mimics the CD4 receptor (red), the CCR5 receptor (green), and a natural antibody (grey), binds to the HIV envelope protein (three white blobs) and blocks it from infecting immune cells.
Credit: Michael Farzan
Over more than a century, researchers have succeeded in developing vaccines to prevent polio, smallpox, cervical cancer, and many other viral diseases. For three decades now, they have tried to design an effective vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS. Despite plenty of hard work, lots of great science, and some promising advances along the way, an effective traditional vaccine still remains elusive. That has encouraged consideration of alternative approaches to block HIV infection.
Now in the journal Nature [1], an NIH-funded team reports promising early results with one of these interesting alternatives. The team hypothesized that producing a protein that binds to HIV and prevents it from entering cells might provide protection. So they designed such a protein, and, using an animal model, introduced multiple copies of a gene that makes this protein. In a small study of non-human primates, this gene-therapy approach blocked HIV infection, even when the animals were exposed repeatedly to large doses of the virus.