Preliminary data from an early stage clinical trial out of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, suggests that a new HIV vaccine may hold promise, ABC News reported.
Although the vaccine candidate will still need to be tested in larger studies, experts are hopeful this vaccine might succeed where others have failed.
When HIV was first discovered as the cause for AIDS in the early 1980s, researchers thought that a vaccine for this virus could be created rapidly, as had been done for diseases like measles, chickenpox and hepatitis B. However, they soon encountered several hurdles, such as the fact that HIV mutates rapidly.
The early-stage, phase 1 clinical trial, which is still underway, involved 48 healthy adults who received a total of two doses of either the vaccine or placebo, two months apart. Preliminary data showed 97% of those who received the vaccine had early evidence that their immune system may be able to make these broad antibodies.
LiveScience.com noted that Scripps and IAVI will now partner with Moderna to make an mRNA (messenger RNA) version of the vaccinea step that could lead to faster vaccine availability, according to Scripps Research.