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Published online 18 July 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.964
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HIV vaccine trial cancelled
Planned study is deep-sixed after earlier disappointing results.
The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has scotched plans for a large clinical trial of a candidate vaccine against HIV.
The trial, called PAVE 100, would have tested whether a vaccine could help control HIV infection.
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the hiv vaccine research field has been one of the toughest fields and also is highly disappointing. the main problem is, we still do not know the protective immune correlates of hiv.to put in in simple words we are yet to see somebody who was diseased and got cured. i guess a highly concentrated course like "integrated MSc/PhD" on HIV biology would help to generate highly focused candidates to take up HIV vaccine research for their PhD or post doc.
Nature has already provided us the answer to wiping out AIDS. There are people who are naturally immune to the disease. People who are infected with HIV and yet do not develop AIDS. When we figure out what makes them immune - then we can make everyone else immune also.
"Once considered highly promising, STEP’s disappointing end has led agencies to renew their emphasis on basic research." Unfortunately, many basic researchers who, from the basic biology of HIV, knew from the beginning that HIV was unlikely to succumb to the vaccination approach, have been eliminated from the system because they opposed the conventional wisdom. Their careers shattered because they were right, where are we now going to find the reseachers to cure HIV?
I completely agree with Donald Forsdyke comment. A number of researchers that did not believed in the strategies used in vaccine design did not receive funds and were slowly excluded from well-funded HIV research programs. Bioinformatics and evolutionary researchers believed that all of the previous vaccine projects had a very high likelihood of failure. This is because the high generation number of HIV virions and the high mutation rate always produced escape mutants which escape immune pressure.