Animal studies lend support to an innovative HIV vaccine strategy — but there’s still a long way to go Annalisa Merelli Jonathan Wosen By Annalisa Merelli and Jonathan Wosen May 17, 2024

https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/17/hiv-vaccine-research-latest-from-scientific-journals/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8QZGnrQA5-nm4hbEqMsDOPTsr6Jng43z1lMSTyp-NhIHFtbbF1Hxx4oztoS5yEaOyTvtOJS3ou_RQqh2XJRGXZmLQ6Tw&_hsmi=307586741&utm_content=307586741&utm_source=hs_email HIV vaccine history is riddled with failures. Could a new approach work? Immunologists have been trying for decades to develop an effective vaccine against HIV, with no success. Just last year, researchers’ last attempt to get an HIV vaccine off the ground in this decade was shut down; the vaccine regimens were a dud. HIV is famously a shapeshifter, mutating at the highest rates known to science. That makes it really difficult for the human immune system to catch up and shut the virus down. So it’s with great skepticism (and hope) that researchers are testing a new approach, STAT’s Annalisa Merelli and Jonathan Wosen report. Last week, four studies bolstered the idea that exposing the immune system to a series of different vaccine molecules could trigger a powerful and protective antibody response. The studies, conducted in mice and monkeys, showed that researchers could begin to coax an exceedingly rare kind of B cell to make antibodies that block a broad swath of viral strains — an important first step. But there are still plenty of barriers to making this work in people ‘Last roll of the dice’ for a near-term HIV vaccine fails Jason Mast By Jason Mast Dec. 6, 2023 https://www.statnews.com/2023/12/06/aids-hiv-vaccine-fail-prepvacc-africa/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8vknTfAa8PEfrSinXRKUIYXFo7oH7kwVrQ3z2aWMAmSh5CHtL_q3lg3_X_GOHIcQU3vbe6BgP3FuXZtYZoENPifFrfyg&_hsmi=307586741&utm_content=307586741&utm_source=hs_email