Researchers design global HIV vaccine that shows promise in monkeys

The considerable diversity of HIV worldwide represents a critical challenge for designing an effective HIV vaccine. Now, a scientific team led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has shown that bioinformatically optimized HIV vaccine antigens known as “mosaic” antigens might be useful in the design of a global HIV vaccine. This study, which was conducted in monkeys, is published in the journal Cell. “A global HIV vaccine would offer major biomedical and practical advantages over most other HIV vaccine candidates, which are limited to certain regions of the world,” says lead author Dan H. Barouch, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at BIDMC, Director of the Vaccine Program at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “To our knowledge, this study represents the first evaluation of the protective efficacy of a candidate global HIV antigen strategy...