Possible step toward AIDS vaccine development

Researchers report a breakthrough in generating powerful antibodies that can neutralize HIV. An HIV infection is really an intensive molecular arms race launched from the minute the virus infects a new host. AIDS progresses not because the body isn’t capable of fighting off HIV — it is. But the immune defenses eventually succumb to the virus in the final standoff. Now researchers led by Barton Haynes, director of the Duke University Human Vaccine Institute at Duke University School of Medicine, believe they have found a way to tip the odds in the immune system’s favor. From the moment of infection, the immune system goes on alert and immediately generates antibodies designed to attach to and destroy HIV. And for the first few weeks, these antibodies are successful, eliminating all but a few viruses that remain hidden away from the body’s surveillance systems. These viral stalwarts then mutate to escape detection and start to flourish, expanding...