Develop the first preventive vaccine against the HIV virus within 5 years. This is the objective of a global project led by virologist Rogier Sanders of the University Medical Center (UMC) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, financed with a 4.5 million euro grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. There are 40 million people with HIV in the world, two thirds of which are on the African continent. In 2022, the virus recorded over 1.3 million infections, killing more than 600 thousand patients. After tuberculosis, HIV is the second deadliest infection on the planet.
“We hope to be able to develop a preventative vaccine by designing and testing immunogens that induce neutralizing antibodies” against HIV, explains Sanders, whose group also includes scientists from Stanford University, Weill Cornell Medical College and the University of Louisiana. , USA. “So far no one has succeeded,” he recalls. But in recent times something has changed and “there is a lot of optimism”, he assures.
“All the vaccines that have failed so far – underlines the virology professor at the UMC in Amsterdam – have not been able to induce neutralizing antibodies, let alone largely neutralizing ones”, against HIV. “But compared to these previous studies, today there are very interesting advances.” In particular, “there are some positive results from several phase I studies on the possibility of inducing broadly neutralizing antibodies” that can act as a 'shield' against AIDS virus infection. The team led by Sanders therefore intends to exploit this “nice progress” to develop a vaccine aimed at specific immune cells capable of producing neutralizing anti-HIV antibodies.
To shine a light in the darkness that has often fallen on the dream of a vaccine against AIDS, with various unsuccessful attempts implemented from the 1980s onwards, is an approach called 'germline targeting'. It is based on the activation of immune cells that have the potential to grow and produce anti-HIV antibodies, and in a study published in 'Science' by another research group it produced promising results. Sanders' team is aiming for a 'priming' strategy that would allow these germ cells to be guided to develop into adult cells capable of producing stronger and more numerous antibodies against the AIDS virus, capable of avoiding HIV infection as asks for an effective preventative vaccine.
“Think of human immune cells as a youth football team. Budding talents are recruited and then transformed into World Cup players”, is the metaphor chosen by the Dutch virologist. His team recently took another step forward, testing an experimental vaccine designed according to this approach in phase I between New York, Washington and Amsterdam. “We hope in the end to be able to develop an effective vaccine against the numerous variants of HIV – hopes Sanders – and that this will put an end to the burden of suffering that the virus continues to cause”.
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