Cell Rep: A new vaccine to stop HIV infection

Photo from Cell Reports, 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.06.074the researchers first identified a part of the HIV virus that, when combined with antibodies, causes damage to the virus and the cells it infectsThey then devised a vaccine that induces these types of antibodiesThis vaccine design method is called "reverse vaccineology," also translated as reverse vaccinesthe HIV target identified by these researchers is called the V1V2 ring on the gp120 encased proteinIn experiments with monkeys who received a new recombinant protein that carried the V1V2 region with gp120 DNA, the vaccination induced antibodies that showed many different antiviral functionsThese antibodies are the types of antibodies associated with a decrease in HIV infection rates in previous human clinical trials"For more than a decade, our lab has worked with researchers from several research institutes in the United States to develop a new way to design an hiv/AIDS vaccine," said DrSusan Zolla-Pazner, co-author of thepaper and professor of medicine and microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount SinaiThe vaccine we developed is safe because it does not contain anything that is contagious to any individual who has been vaccinatedIn this new study, we confirm that the new vaccine induces the required antibodies in monkeys, which strongly suggests that similar protective antibodies can also be induced in humans and may play an important role in preventing HIV infectionconfirmed that a vaccine induces antibodies in monkeys because it suggests that humans will react similarly to itIn the new study, the successful production of antibodies in monkeys suggests that the vaccine should go into human clinical trials to determine whether it is as safe, well tolerated and immunogenic as it is in monkeysReferences:1Ann J Hessell et al Multimeric Epitope-Scaffold HIV Vaccines V1V2 and Differentially Lyn Tune Antibody Responses Cell Reports, 2019, doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2019.06.074 2 Researchers develop novel vaccine out ath ath antibodies t-sit to protection https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-07-vaccine-antibodies-contribute.html