Researchers overcome major stumbling blocks in developing HIV vaccine

An international team of researchers has demonstrated a way of overcoming one of the major stumbling blocks that has prevented the development of a vaccine against HIV: the ability to generate immune cells that stay in circulation long enough to respond to and stop virus infection. In a study published in 2009, results from a clinical trial carried out in Thailand found that an experimental vaccine against HIV lowered the rate of human infection by 31%. This gave cautious optimism that a vaccine against the virus might be a feasible prospect. A vaccine has obvious advantages over treatment with anti-retroviral drugs in that prevention could lead to eradication. However, one of the major problems that prevented the vaccine from generating long-lasting protection was that the key immune response it needed to generate was very short-lived. The reason has now become clear and researchers have found a potential solution. When a virus enters the...