St George’s HIV expert Professor Robin Shattock has praised the efforts of scientists who have made a crucial breakthrough in the search for an AIDS vaccine. The Professor of Cellular and Molecular Infection said the successful results of a new vaccine trial were “a real boost” that offered hope for the future.
The trial of the experimental vaccine in Thailand showed it could protect against HIV, to an extent. The vaccine – a combination of two earlier, unsuccessful vaccines – cut the chances of contracting HIV by a third.
Prof Shattock said: “This trial is very promising as it is the first to show a positive effect. It is early days and we need to see if the results are statistically significant. But it does give researchers a real boost at a time when some were questioning whether a vaccine would ever be possible. Although it is very early to say exactly what this means for the future, it does offer hope.
“Now we need to understand how some of the participants in this trial were in some way protected. It is essential to discover how this experimental vaccine affected the immune response of the participants. Once we understand what worked we can build on that to develop more effective vaccines.”
The trial was carried out over seven years by the US Army and the Thai government. More than 16,000 HIV-negative men and women aged between 18 and 30 took part. Half were given the vaccine, and half took a placebo. The results showed that the chances of catching HIV were 31.2 per cent less for those who took the vaccine.
Prof Shattock applauded the trial, and added: “At St George’s, we are already looking at next generation approaches where we deliberately target the immune response in the genital tract. Our hope is that if the current vaccine shows some protection by stimulating an immune response in the blood, then stimulating an immune response in the genital tract where the virus first infects an individual may be even more effective.”
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