New HIV vaccine candidate elicits rare antibodies in rhesus macaques
A new HIV vaccine candidate just delivered some exciting results in a preclinical study published today.
Scientists from the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, Scripps Research, and IAVI managed to trigger rare, powerful antibodies in nearly one-half of the rhesus macaques they tested.
These antibodies are key because they can target lots of different HIV strains, a big step forward.
Researchers designed HIV vaccine around targets
HIV is tough to beat since it mutates fast and hides behind tricky defenses.
The researchers tackled this by figuring out which parts of the virus spark the right immune response, then designed their vaccine around that.
Shane Crotty, who co-led the 14-year project, called it their "Apollo moon mission," showing just how much teamwork and innovation went into this breakthrough.