Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: AIDS vaccine

Author:David Theige
Posted:2/3/2000; 1:39:21 PM
Topic:AIDS vaccine
Msg #:14911 (In response to 14910)
Prev/Next:14910 / 14912

Hot off the press from Medscape! Free registration required.

7th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections Day 4 - February 2, 2000

Vaccine Research Ramps Up James I. Mullins, PhD

"Over the last few years, the field has witnessed a series of minor successes and failures in animal vaccine experiments. The problem was that the successes were too fragile; there appeared to be too much nuance required. Thus, we began to consider attenuation of disease and reduced transmission frequency as realistic and desirable vaccine outcomes. Finally, without a compelling rationale based on data, but rather based on the belief that clinical trial data were needed and that one would never know if the vaccine worked unless a efficacy trial was conducted, phase III HIV vaccine trials have begun in humans. Preliminary results on immunogenicity of the monomeric envelope protein antigen used in this trial, conducted by VaxGen, were presented at this meeting.[6]

We now have vaccine trials ongoing that no one really believes will work, and we have no clearly winning strategies in the pipeline. Despite these sobering facts, there may be reason to be more optimistic now than at any time in the recent past. According to B. Graham[7] over 40 distinct candidate AIDS vaccine regimens have been evaluated in more than 3000 subjects. Also, as will be discussed below, we are finally learning how to create and deliver antigens to induce potent immune responses. We don't know how effective recent approaches will turn out to be for eliciting protective immunity, but it is beginning to look good from a basic science perspective."






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