Promising AIDS vaccine candidate to go into human trials

[Tonington]

This is pretty ingenious and elegant stuff. Suppress the type of protein expression that the virus requires.

A combination of the inactivated virus and a living adjuvant (live bacteria) stimulated a protein of a new class. The new major histocompatability molecule suppresses another which the virus requires for infecting cells. When the virus attempts to infect, the new molecule suppresses the virus targeted cell. In the monkey model, the macaques were fully protected up to two years after the vaccine was given.

By a long shot, this is one of the more promising candidates to have come along.

HIV & AIDS Information :: Novel immune-suppressant vaccine completely blocks HIV infection in monkeys: human trials planned

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

So its a vaccine rather than a cure? Will it work with those who are already infected?

 

[B00Mer]

So its a vaccine rather than a cure? Will it work with those who are already infected?

'completely blocks HIV infection in monkeys' guessing that means you have to be infected first..

This is great news..

 

[Tonington]

So its a vaccine rather than a cure? Will it work with those who are already infected?

It did! To check their mode of action, they gave the monkeys anti-bodies against the new class of CD8 protein. The antibodies blocked the CD8, and the other molecule I was mentioning that the virus needs was available, the virus was able to infect. When the researcher stopped the CD8 antibody treatment, the monkeys recovered in less than two months. The viral load went down. So yes, it looks like, if it behaves the same way in a human immune system with HIV, that the treatment can be both prophylactic and therapeutic.