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Published online 14 November 2007 | Nature 450, 325 (2007) | doi:10.1038/450325a
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HIV vaccine may raise risk
Infection rates increase in some trial participants.
An HIV vaccine made by Merck that failed in clinical trials may have increased the susceptibility of some trial participants to the AIDS virus, researchers reported last week. The findings have left scientists grappling with the problem of how to handle future trials of vaccines that use similar strategies to stimulate an immune response.
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Hi I am a postgraduate student doing MD Pharmacology, I was following the HIV-vaccine news out of interest, its sad that the trial of HIV-vaccine had to be stopped.... I want to ask one thing, "What will happen to the volunteers who had become infected with HIV during the trial?" can you let me know that ?
Am I the only one who's somewhat surprised at the widespread surprise on the failure of the STEP trials? For a start these vaccines were never really expected to lower the infection rate, but based on pre-clinical evidence it was hoped that they would lower the viral burden in infected individuals, thus slowing or preventing the onset of AIDS in individuals who were infected with HIV after vaccination. Five years ago a series of experiments in monkeys cast doubt on the approach used for this vaccine. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6869/full/415272b.html http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/296/5577/2325 In one study it was found that the DNA/adenovirus vaccine reduced the viral load in 8 SHIV infected monkeys, however one monkey no longer could control the virus after 6 months. This was possibly due to the virus mutating and no longer being recognised by the immune system. More seriously another study found that this vaccine failed to control the virus in monkeys that were infected with a strain of SIV considered by many scientists to be a better model for HIV pathogenesis than the less virulent SHIV. I think it is time to ask whether these trials should have proceeded to large scale human trials when the results for this vaccine approach in the ideal laboratory situation were so disappointing. Is the pressure to produce a vaccine leading to vaccines entering trials before adequate pre-clinical testing has been completed? These are questions that should be answered before other large scale trials are begun, especially given the concerns that the adenovirus might be acting as a cofactor for HIV infection.