AIDS: a single-chain full-length vaccine
One of the discoverers of the human immunodeficiency virus
started clinical trials of an AIDS vaccine
Marina Astvatsaturyan, Echo of Moscow
Robert Gallo not only isolated in 1984 in his laboratory at the U.S. National Cancer Institute a retrovirus that causes the development of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), but also provided convincing evidence of the link between HIV infection and AIDS, which were outlined in four seminal articles published by the journal Science.
Now the Institute of Human Virology, founded by him, in Baltimore, Maryland, has developed a vaccine that provides protection against HIV for 15 years, ScienceNOW (AIDS pioneer finally brings AIDS vaccine to clinic) reports. We are talking about the first stage (phase I) of clinical trials, which is designed to assess the safety of the drug and the immune response to it.
60 volunteers take part in the trials, which are conducted jointly with the biotechnology company Profectus BioSciences, recently launched by the Gallo Institute of Virology. The name of the experimental drug is "full-length single-chain vaccine" (full-length single chain vaccine). Since the discovery of HIV and its connection with immunodeficiency, more than 100 experimental anti–aids vaccines have been created, the vaccine of the Gallo Institute is the first to reach human trials.
(In fact, several vaccines, including those developed in Russia, reached the first phase of CI, but trials of the most successful of them were discontinued after the end of the second phase due to its inefficiency - VM.)
The main component of the new experimental drug is the surface protein of the human immunodeficiency virus gp120, capable of binding to some of the CD4 receptors – proteins located on the surface of cells of the immune system of lymphocytes, or white blood cells. With HIV infection, this protein first attaches to CD4 receptors, and then "turns" in such a way that the hidden part of the virus becomes exposed, attached to the second receptor on immune cells, which is called CCR5. By binding to both receptors, HIV penetrates into the cells of the human immune system and begins to infect it.
The vaccine, made at the Baltimore Institute of Human Virology, causes the production of antibodies binding to the viral protein gp120 in its transitional state, which blocks the attachment of the viral particle to the second receptor CCR5 and actually interrupts the infection process. The direct creators of this drug are George Lewis and two of his employees, Antonio DeVico and Timothy Fouts. According to the head of the institute, 78-year-old Robert Gallo, the path of this vaccine to clinical trials was long, despite successful experiments on monkeys, because "before starting human trials, we had to answer a lot of questions put forward by scientists themselves."
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16.10.2015