Trial Experiment for HIV Vaccine for 2019

A new experimental vaccine regimen, tailor made to fit of the structure of a vulnerable region on HIV, generated antibodies in mice, guinea pigs and monkeys, and it neutralized dozens of HIV strains, according to hivplusmag.

The findings will lead to human clinical trials for a vaccine capable of neutralizing a large fraction of common HIV strains.

Chief of the Structural Biology Section at the NIAID Vaccine Research Center Peter D. Kwong, Ph.D and John R. Mascola, M.D., center director, spearheaded the study published in Nature Medicine on 4 June.

So how does it work. Well it is first epitope based. An epitope is a specific site of an antigen which an antibody binds.

So what needs to be done initially is to identify powerful antibodies that might have a chance at neutralising HIV and then try to elicit them with vaccine.

Th second approach is to conduct human trials in order to get solid data. A preliminary human trial of the team’s new vaccine regimen is anticipated to begin in the second half of 2019.