Vaccine Trial Starts in Los Angeles

[marius68]

A new therapeutic vaccine is being tested! That's good news. I have great hopes that any of the vaccines being tested now, either alone or in combination with other vaccine(s), will provide the means to control the virus.

http://www.hivplusmag.com/NewsStory.asp?id=21566&sd=10/30/2009-11/01/2009

AIDS Research Alliance of America, in collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles, has launched the latest HIV vaccine study in Los Angeles today. As part of the National Institutes of Health-funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network, ARA is one of 14 sites throughout the United States to begin testing a new prime-boost HIV vaccine that may provide valuable insight into how to better control HIV infection.

The NIH-funded HVTN 505 is a Phase 2, proof-of-concept study that employs a prime-boost strategy of two investigational vaccines developed by scientists at NIH's Vaccine Research Center. Study volunteers will be vaccinated with either (a) a recombinant DNA-based vaccine (the primer vaccine) over the course of eight weeks followed by a single immunization with a recombinant boosting vaccine or (b) placebos at the same intervals.

The primary study objective is to see if the prime boost vaccine can significantly reduce the amount of virus in individuals who become infected with HIV. This is important because viral load is a marker of potential vaccine effect on disease progression, and therefore, a signal of potential vaccine efficacy. An HIV vaccine that lowers viral load may also delay the onset of illness, even if it doesn't prevent HIV infection, and may also reduce transmission of the virus to others.

Neither of the two vaccines contains HIV, and neither vaccine can infect study participants with the virus. Both vaccines have been found safe when tested in hundreds of people in earlier clinical trials.

[Inchlingblue]

Here is more information about this study:

http://forums.poz.com/index.php?topic=28993.0