Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system. Over time, this can lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. Advances in the treatment of HIV using antiviral drugs have been successful in recent years, but the production of a vaccine has been elusive. Scientists from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and Scripps Research are working on an approach that has proven fruitful so far.
The aim of the researchers was to introduce a vaccine that causes the production of antibodies, or bnAbs. These antibodies can be attached to a wide variety of HIV strains, which is why they are widely called neutralizing. But to do that, they need to target rare immune cells called naive B cells. This vaccine is intended as the first part of a multi-step vaccine regimen that elicits many types of bnAbs.
In the phase 1 clinical trial, there were 48 HIV-negative participants, according to a fact sheet. Participants received two doses of vaccine or placebo, two months apart. The participants were also divided into low and high dose groups. Of the participants who received the vaccine, 97 percent had detectable levels of the target immune cell. The researchers believe that these levels were ‘high enough to be promising as a next step to give a boost’, according to the information sheet. Participants were monitored for 12 months after vaccination, and there were no safety concerns.
The vaccine seems to have done what it was meant to do.
“We and others postulated many years ago that to cause bnAbs, you need to start the process by activating the right B cells – cells with special properties that offer their potential to develop into bnAb secreting cells,” says William Schief , a professor and immunologist at Scripps Research and executive director of vaccine design at IAVI’s Neutralizing Antibody Center (NAC), the laboratory that developed the vaccine, in a Press release.
“In this experiment, the targeted cells were only about one in a million of all naive B cells. To get the right antibody response, we must first pump the right B cells. The data from this trial confirm the ability of the vaccine immunogen to do so. ”
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If the data is correct and the following phases of clinical trials go well, it can be a game changer to prevent HIV infection.
“Given the urgent need for an HIV vaccine to curb the global epidemic, we believe these results will have broad implications for HIV vaccine researchers as they decide which scientific directions to pursue,” said Mark Feinberg, president and CEO of IAVI.
“This is a tremendous achievement for vaccine science as a whole,” said Dennis Burton, professor at Scripps Research, scientific director of the IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Center and director of the NIH Consortium for the Development of HIV / Aids Vaccine.
The group plans to launch further trials for the vaccine, according to the fact sheet. It is also planned to collaborate with Moderna to create an mRNA version of the vaccine aimed at producing the same bnABs.
Experts are hopeful that this approach to HIV vaccines will also be useful for other pathogens, such as influenza virus, dengue virus, Zika virus, hepatitis C viruses and the malaria parasite.
“This clinical trial has shown that we can drive immune responses in predictable ways to make new and better vaccines, and not just for HIV,” Burton said. “We believe that these types of vaccines can be applied more widely, which could bring about a new day in the vaccination.”
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