National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases



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HIV/AIDS

Vaccines

Introduction and Goals

Except for a few individuals, once HIV infects a person, the virus overcomes every challenge the immune system throws at it. Even with the range of drugs currently at our disposal, HIV infection can only be managed and not eradicated. An infected person must maintain treatment medications for life. What’s needed is an effective HIV vaccine that can:

Stop viral entry into the cells
Interrupt viral replication
Thwart “broadcasting” of the virus from the initial site of infection
Prevent spread to another person
Induce long lasting immunity
Be effective against all HIV subtypes
Be simple to administer
Be inexpensive

At the Summit for HIV Vaccine Research and Development in March 2008, NIAID sought input from the research community on how best to re-energize the field of HIV vaccine discovery research in order to meet these goals. The scientific community emphasized the need to broaden research directed at answering fundamental questions in HIV vaccine discovery through laboratory, non-human primates, and clinical researchHighest Research Priorities Identified at the NIAID HIV Vaccine Summit, March 2008 as published in Science 321: 530, 2008.

Define the first events leading to entry of HIV and SIV into the gut-associated lymphoid tissue, including the availability of target cells in tissues and the cause and role of immune activation
Determine the rate and mechanisms of recruiting innate and adaptive immune cells to the site of infection, and whether innate responses can alter the course of infection
Characterize the cellular and humoral immune responses needed to control HIV and SIV viral replication through modulation and/or elimination of specific cell subsets in the SIV model and studies of HIV-infected populations
Determine the three-dimensional structure of HIV envelope trimer
Determine why broadly neutralizing antibodies are so uncommon and how they can be elicited
Define the specificities of antibodies that neutralize diverse primary isolates
Develop more relevant animal models and challenge viruses to explore protection or enhancement of infection or disease, particularly heterologous challenge models
Determine why SIV is apathogenic in some non-human primate species
Identify correlates of vaccine-induced immune protection, especially the mechanisms whereby non-pathogenic (e.g., attenuated) SIVs prevent infection by pathogenic virus

The HIV Vaccine Summit resulted in several new funding opportunities such as Highly Innovative Tactics to Interrupt Transmission of HIV (HIT-IT), Basic HIV Vaccine Discovery Research; and a workshop that brought together non-human primate researchers to provide guidance to DAIDS on how best to invest resources in nonhuman primate models to advance the development of an effective AIDS vaccine.