SCIENCE TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE, C. BICKELThe only HIV vaccine to show promising efficacy in clinical trials stimulated an antibody-based defense in some individuals but not in others. Analyzing patients’ samples from a large trial that took place in Thailand between 2003 and 2005, researchers have now identified a subgroup of study participants who express a human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele linked to reduced risk of HIV infection after vaccination. The results of this latest analysis were published today (July 15) in Science Translational Medicine.
The highly mutable nature of HIV makes vaccine design particularly challenging. (See “Defeating the Virus,” The Scientist, May 2015.) Individual variation in immune response adds another layer of difficulty. The present study provides additional information on the range of possible immune responses to an HIV vaccine.
“Understanding why [the vaccine] appeared to work in some individuals and may not have worked in others is really paramount to moving the field closer to an effective [HIV] vaccine,” said Bruce Walker, director at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT, and Harvard, who was not involved in the work. “We don't yet know enough about how to turn vaccine non-responders into responders, but this is an important first step.”
Rasmi Thomas of the Walter Reed Army ...
