A Phase 1 clinical trial of an experimental vaccine supplemented the immune system using a unique approach to prevent HIV.
The promising results, announced in February by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and Scripps Research, show that the vaccine is successful in stimulating the production of rare immune cells needed to elicit antibodies against the fast-mutating virus. – and the targeted response was detected in 97. percent of the participants who received the vaccine.
“We have shown that vaccines can be designed to stimulate rare immune cells with specific properties, and this targeted stimulation can be very effective in humans,” said William Schief, PhD, a professor and immunologist at Scripps Research and executive director of vaccine design at IAVI, said. Neutralizing antibody center, whose laboratory developed the vaccine.
“We believe that this approach will be the key to making an HIV vaccine and may be important in making vaccines against other pathogens.”
As a next step, IAVI and Scripps are working with biotechnology company Moderna to develop and test a mRNA-based vaccine that uses the approach to produce the same beneficial immune cells. The use of mRNA technology can significantly accelerate the pace of development of HIV vaccine.
HIV, which affects more than 38 million people worldwide, is known as one of the most difficult viruses to target with a vaccine, as it is constantly evolving in different strains to evade the immune system.
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“These exciting findings are evident in their creative, innovative science and are a testament to the talent of the research team, dedication and collaborative spirit and of the generosity of the participants in the trial,” said Mark Feinberg, MD, PhD, President and CEO head of IAVI.
One in a million
For decades, HIV researchers have been striving for the holy grail to stimulate the immune system to create rare but powerful antibodies that can neutralize different strains of HIV. These specialized blood proteins, known as “broadly neutralizing antibodies”, or bnAbs, can attach to HIV nails, proteins on the virus surface, which allow the virus to enter human cells and eliminate them via important yet difficult access areas. which does not differ much from strain to strain.
“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 enable them to develop into bnAb-secreting cells,” says Schief .
“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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The first step is the first phase of a multi-step vaccine regimen aimed at eliciting many different types of bnAbs.
Promise outside of HIV
The strategy to target naïve B cells with specific traits is called ‘germline target’, as these young B cells display antibodies encoded by unmutated, or ‘germline’ genes. Researchers believe the approach could also be applied to vaccines for other challenging pathogens such as flu, dengue, Zika, hepatitis C viruses and malaria.
“This is a tremendous achievement for vaccine science as a whole,” said Dennis Burton, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research, scientific director of the IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Center and director of the NIH Consortium for HIV . AIDS Vaccine Development. ‘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. We believe that these types of vaccines can be applied more widely, which can bring about a new day in the vaccination. ‘
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The clinical trial, IAVI G001, took place in two areas: George Washington University in Washington, DC, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, which enrolled 48 healthy adult volunteers. Participants received a placebo or two doses of the vaccine compound, eOD-GT8 60mer, along with an adjuvant developed by pharmaceutical company GSK.
“This is an important study in the field against HIV vaccine and shows success in the first step in producing a broad neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1,” says McElrath.
The study provides the stage for additional clinical trials to refine and expand the approach – with the long-term goal of creating a safe and effective HIV vaccine.
Funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, through the collaboration for the discovery of AIDS vaccines – and grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – supports a network of partners who conduct analyzes and contribute to the development of the vaccine, including the NIH vaccine. Research Center, the Government of the Netherlands and the US International Development Agency.
(SOURCE: Scripps.edu)
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