The Search For A Vaccine

 

     Several potential vaccines are currently being developed, but the process is slow.  One of the largest setbacks is that HIV viruses are continuously evolving.  HIV has such a high mutation rate that it quickly becomes immune to the drugs used to treat it (Taylor, 2006).  HIV viruses are not uniform and react differently to treatment depending on the individual patient.  A successful vaccine must take into account the diversity of the HIV virus.   

 

     Additionally, our understanding of HIV molecular biology is very limited.  According to theoretical predictions, the virus should be swiftly eliminated by the immune system upon entering the body.  But, it isn’t.  Somehow, the virus manages to evade the body’s natural defenses and infect our cells anyway.  Until this process is better understood, a vaccine may not be a viable options.

 

     The latest vaccine development is centered around 59-year-old man that is part of very rare group of HIV-positive patients who never get sick or go on to develop AIDS because their immune systems are aggressive against the virus (Daily Mail, 2015). Researchers deem that a chemical injection will strengthen the immune system with a 'kick and kill' strategy to chemically flush out dormant HIV viruses hiding in white blood cells, allowing a boosted immune system to identify and kill the cells (Lay, 2015). “[O]ur immune system [may] rapidly control HIV-1 tells us a lot about the types of immune responses we should target and augment through vaccination” said Nilu Goonetilleke, PhD and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine (Fitzpatrick, 2015).