Discovery helps US researchers close in on HIV vaccine

July 8) -- American scientists are touting a major stride toward a vaccine that
can ward off HIV, after finding two key proteins that neutralize 91 percent of t
he virus' 190 strains.
The team of researchers with the National Institutes of Health's Vaccine Researc
h Center hopes the antibody discovery can spur successful work toward a method o
f preventing HIV, which already afflicts an estimated 33 million people worldwid
e.
The discovery, published in this week's Science, is courtesy of Donor 45, an uni
dentified African-American man whose body produced the antibodies, called VRC01
and VRC02.
This image shows the atomic structure of the antibody VRC01 (blue and green) bin
ding to HIV (grey and red). The precise site of VRC01-HIV binding (red) is a sub
set of the area of viral attachment to the primary immune cells HIV infects.
NIAID VRC
This image shows the antibody VRCO1, pictured in blue and green, binding to HIV,
colored gray and red.
Scientists have already identified the 12 cells in his body that produced the pr
oteins. If they can harness the mechanisms by which the antibodies were made, th
ey might be able to create a vaccine that would spur anybody's body to make the
HIV destroyers.
"We're going to be at this for a while," Gary Nabel, director of the center and
a leader on this research, told The Wall Street Journal.
The last few years has seen a flurry of effort -- much of it futile -- toward cr
eating a vaccine for HIV, much like those that helped eradicate small pox and po
lio. Until now, however, single antibodies only appeared to block one or two HIV
strains.
Trials on the first promising vaccine, AIDSVAX, were largely a disappointment. I
n American and Thai trials, the vaccine yielded success rates that varied from s
tatistically insignificant to 30 percent.
In this case, researchers seem to have found a sweet spot on the surface of the
human immunodeficiency virus.
"The antibodies attach to a virtually unchanging part of the virus, and this exp
lains why they can neutralize such an extraordinary range of HIV strains," Dr. J
ohn Mascola, one of the study's researchers, said in a statement.
Turning these newly discovered antibodies into a useful HIV vaccine remains a ta
ll order. Scientists would need to isolate the specific part of the virus that t
he antibodies latch onto, then craft a vaccine using that viral snippet to train
the body to produce VRC01 and VRC02.
"It's an important step in the right direction of adding a degree of precision t
o vaccine development," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC News. "But there's no way to tell whe
n a vaccine could happen."
Now that scientists have a better understanding of the actual virus, and areas o
n its surface that appear vulnerable, new tactics in treating HIV/AIDS might als
o be an area for further research.
"In infected people, we may be looking at it in combination with medication and
determine whether you can get more effective control of the virus and suppress i
t down to low levels," Nabel said. "The hope would be that we could suppress the
virus and increase life span and improve quality of life."
Filed under: Nation, Science, Health