End of HIV? Virus strain in monkeys cleared by vaccine A team of US researchers are hoping the theories behind their vaccine for monkeys could be used to protect humans 12 September 2013 | By Joe Morgan Freeman Monkeys infected with a strain similar to HIV have been cured, giving new hope to find an end to the human virus. In a study published in the science journal Nature, it showed of 16 monkeys exposed to the virus injected with a vaccine, nine appeared to be able to clear their body of the disease. The US scientists now wish to see whether a similar approach will work on humans. The team looked at an aggressive form of virus called SICmac239, a strain 100 times more deadly than HIV. Researchers first inoculated the 16 monkeys with the vaccine, and then exposed them to SIV. The virus did not spread in over half of the inoculated monkeys, which usually die within two years of being infected. Nine of the monkeys’ bodies began to respond and searched out and destroyed signs of SIV. As far as the researchers are aware, they have remained clear for three years. Professor Louis Picker, from the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute at Oregon Health and Science University, told the BBC ‘it’s always tough to claim eradication’. ‘There could always be a cell which we didn’t analyse that has the virus in it,’ he said. ‘But for the most part, with very stringent criteria…there was no virus left in the body of these monkeys.’ The team are now trying to work out why the vaccination worked only in half of the specimens. Picker said: ‘It could be the fact that SIV is so pathogenic that this is the best you are ever going to get. In testing on humans, Picker said they had to ensure the vaccine would be ‘absolutely safe’. The researchers have engineered a virus that has the same immune response in humans, and they believe it to be ‘unequivocally safe’. But it will still have to pass the regulatory authorities, but if it does, the first human clinical trials could begin in the next two years. It comes as a team of Canadian researchers have announced their HIV vaccine has ‘aced’ their first human clinical trials. - See more at: gaystarnews/article/end-hiv-virus-strain-monkeys-cleared-vaccine120913#sthash.n6VbeEDp.dpuf
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 08:21:55 +0000
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