Each team is pursuing a unique vaccine strategy, and these strategies include DNA vaccines, virus vector vaccines, subunit vaccines and virus-like particle vaccines. None of the vaccines contain the genetic information to make a complete virus, and therefore they pose no threat of HIV infection to potential study participants.
"A safe and effective HIV vaccine is critical to the control of HIV globally," says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID director. "These new awards will speed the development of promising HIV vaccine candidates that are based on recent advances in HIV vaccine design and on the latest discoveries in HIV virology and immunology."
The four research organizations that have received awards and summaries of their proposed projects follow.
AlphaVax Human Vaccines, Inc., Durham, North Carolina
Under the direction of Jeffrey D. Chulay, M.D., researchers at AlphaVax will use non-replicating alphavirus particles as a vector to deliver the genes to make four HIV proteins (gag, pol, env and nef). This novel vaccine induces strong cellular and antibody immune responses in animal models, including non-human primates. The genes in this vaccine have been taken from HIV strains in circulation in South Africa to maximize the probability that the vaccine would be successful in populations with the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS.
This new work builds on experience AlphaVax has obtained from making and testing a similar "proof-of-concept" vaccine that contains on
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Contact: NIAID Press Office
niaidnews@niaid.nih.gov
301-402-1663
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
29-Sep-2003