Investigational vaccine protected monkeys from HIV-like virus

Building on insights from an HIV vaccine regimen in humans that had partial success during a phase 3 clinical trial in Thailand, a Duke-led research team used a more-is-better approach in monkeys that appeared to improve vaccine protection from an HIV-like virus. Adding three more targets to the investigational vaccine, for a total of five, protected more than half of the vaccinated animals from simian-human immunodeficiency virus infection. “The vaccine regimen tested in the Thai trial, known as RV144, had 31-percent efficacy and is the only HIV investigational vaccine regimen to have demonstrated even modest protection from HIV infection,” said Barton F. Haynes, M.D., director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and senior author of a study published online June 8 in the journal Nature Communications. “In this study in monkeys, we increased that level of protection to 55 percent by using a pentavalent (five-part) vaccine.” Haynes and colleagues—including Bette T. Korber of...