Scripps Research Institute tests vaccine candidate in mice.
By Raif Karerat
New research led by scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, has presented a relative quantum leap in the effort to find a vaccine to combat the HIV virus.
“We’ve taken a little bit of HIV and engineered it so that it activates the immune system super well,” Scripps professor David Nemazee told Fox 5 San Diego.
The researchers’ long-term goal is to design a vaccine that prompts the body to produce antibodies that bind to HIV and prevent infection.
The glut of scientists, which included representatives from the Scripps Research Institute, Harvard, and MIT, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, released three studies representing different aspects of their research: two in the journal Science and the third in Cell.
Per The Union-Tribune:
One study in Science indicates it is possible to trigger the antibody system, using an engineered molecule that mimics a vulnerable region of HIV, to make early versions of broadly neutralizing antibodies. The scientists say the primed immune system can then be successively exposed to substances that mimic aspects of HIV, to make more mature versions of these antibodies.
A separate study in Cell showed how the use of a different engineered molecule could complete the final stage of the maturation process to protective antibodies.
Finally, a third study also in Science showed that the latter engineered molecule behaved well in vaccination of rabbits.
So far, scientists at Scripps have only been able to test on mice but they say the results seem promising, reported Fox 5.
While the results are poignant enough to warrant human testing, many additional hurdles remain, said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has been researching HIV since the early years of the AIDS epidemic.
“Whenever you get a result that is encouraging, the next step is to see if we can duplicate that in a very gradual, safe, gingerly way in humans in a Phase 1 trial,” Fauci told The Union-Tribune.