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 Oregon Health & Science University scientists, in announcing the
award, said they hope to develop a vaccine that not only prevents
the HIV virus from infecting people exposed to it, but also
eliminates the virus from those already infected.
The grant follows research published by the scientists seeking to
show their vaccine candidate halting the transmission of, or
eliminating altogether, a form of the virus in about half of more
than 100 monkeys tested.
"In effect, we helped better arm the hunters in the body to chase
down and kill an elusive viral enemy," lead researcher Louis Picker
wrote in the magazine Nature, which published lab results last year.
"And we're quite confident that this vaccine approach can work
exactly the same way against HIV in humans."
While the annual number of new HIV infections has declined in recent
years, more than 35 million people globally were living with HIV and
an estimated 2.1 million people were newly infected with the virus
that causes AIDS last year, according to the World Health
Organization.
Although AIDS-related deaths have dropped in recent years due to
antiretroviral drug therapy, some 1.5 million people still died from
the disease last year, the organization said.
In the United States, the annual rate of diagnosis with HIV fell by
a third between 2002 and 2011, according to a study in the Journal
of the American Medical Association.
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The grant will be used over the next five years to establish whether
the vaccine can be used safely on humans in a clinical trial and to
help Picker develop a version of the vaccine suitable for
larger-scale testing, which is required to bring it to market and
will take at least a decade.
The grant will largely be used to develop the preventative vaccine,
which could also be used for therapeutic and antiretroviral
therapies, the university said in a statement.
The National Institutes of Health cited Picker's research among its
"promising medical advances" of 2013, the researchers said.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aims to eradicate the world's
most deadly diseases and poverty.
(Editing by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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