Oxford scientists begin HIV vaccine clinical trial

HIV Vaccine

Scientists at Oxford University, United Kingdom, have commenced a clinical trial for a novel HIV vaccine.

The trial known as HIV-CORE 0052 began on Monday.

The goal of the trial, according to Oxford, is to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of the HIVconsvX vaccine – a mosaic vaccine targeting a broad range of HIV-1 variants, making it potentially applicable for HIV strains in any geographical region.

For this clinical trial, 13 healthy adults aged between 18–65 who were considered not to be at high risk of infection received one dose of the vaccine which will be followed by a further booster dose at four weeks.

Speaking on the trial, Professor of Vaccine Immunology at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford and lead researcher for the trial, Tomáš Hankeof in a statement said, “An effective HIV vaccine has been elusive for 40 years.

“This trial is the first in a series of evaluations of this novel vaccine strategy in both HIV-negative individuals for prevention and in people living with HIV for a cure.”

Describing how this vaccine would work on Oxford University’s official website, the researchers said “While most HIV vaccine candidates work by inducing antibodies generated by B-cells, HIVconsvX induces the immune system’s potent, pathogen obliterating T cells, targeting them to highly conserved and therefore vulnerable regions of HIV – an “Achilles’ heel” common to most HIV variants.”

This trial is part of the European Aids Vaccine Initiative (EAVI2020), an international collaborative research project funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020 Health Programme for Research and Innovation.

The researchers said they hope to be able to report the results of the HIV-CORE 0052 trial by April 2022.

There are also plans to start similar trials in Europe, Africa and the US, the site reports.

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HIV findings in DR Congo 'give hope for cure'

 

The researchers were surprised by their findings

The discovery of a large group of people whose bodies naturally control HIV without taking medication is leading to hopes of an eventual cure, scientists say.

The study found as many as 4% of HIV carriers in the Democratic Republic of Congo were able to suppress the virus.

Typically less than 1% of people with HIV are able to do so.

This could serve as springboard for further research to develop a vaccine or new treatments to tackle the virus that causes Aids, researchers say.

"When we first started to see the data coming in from the study we were surprised, but we were also elated," Mary Rodgers, the study's lead scientist, told the BBC.

"This could mean that this is something that we can actually cure," she said.

The findings, published in eBioMedicine which is part of The Lancet family of medical journals, looked at samples taken FROM people living with HIV between 1987 and 2019.

The team included scientists from pharmaceutical company Abbott, Université Protestante au Congo, Johns Hopkins, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and University of Missouri - Kansas City.

 

Mary Rodgers: "This group of people gives us hope"

Dr Rodgers, head of Abbott's global viral surveillance programme, said the group in DR Congo was the biggest detected in one country - between 2.7% and 4.3% . Another 1% of people living with HIV in Cameroon were also identified as controlling the virus well without medication.

"This has never really been seen before, typically we would find less than 1% of all people with HIV who are able to suppress the virus naturally."

Currently, most people living with HIV have to take anti-retroviral medicines daily to suppress the virus and reduce their viral load.

It is not yet known how the so-called "elite controllers" discovered in DR Congo are able to suppress their HIV infection.

But Dr Rodgers said understanding how the group was able to maintain low or undetectable viral loads would be crucial to controlling the virus.

However, she stressed the need for more research, while pointing to previous studies that showed this group of people potentially lose their protection as the disease progresses.

HIV came to global attention in the 1980s. It has infected 76 million people since then and 38 million people are living with the virus, Abbott says.

It is believed to have originated in what is now DR Congo a century ago, and today HIV disproportionately affects women in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

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