HIV/AIDS Treatment & Cure Update 2015: Researchers discover HIV vaccine after first-ever human trial using antibody-based therapy

By the end of 2013, there were 35 million people living human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) globally, and that number likely increased in subsequent years. However, the clone of a potent single-cell-based antibody, that dwells near the human CD4 binding site, could be the answer to neutralizing HIV and suppressing HIV in a patient’s blood, reducing the presence of HIV by up to 300 percent. In the past, research has been conducted on genetically engineered mice and non-human primates, but a new trial was the first to test antibody-based therapy on humans. Documented in the international weekly journal of science “Nature,” the antibody treatment utilizes the clones of immune proteins taken from individuals who possess a natural, rare immunity to the virus. That antibody was then injected, in different concentrations, into 17 HIV-infected and 12 uninfected participants over the span of 56 days. The eight infected patients who received the greatest dose of the...