More than 60 years after the first known case of human HIV infection, and 40 years after the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States, a new vaccine has shown huge promise in the fight against HIV with the treatment successfully stimulating the production of antibodies in human trials.
In a Phase I Clinical trial that began in 2018, scientists at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and Scripps Research gave 48 participants two doses of either the vaccine candidate or a placebo, spaced two months apart.
Results show that, in 97 percent of recipients, the vaccine stimulated the immune system to produce immunoglobulin G (IgG) B cells—a first step to making rare but powerful antibodies required to protect against