http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/29/hiv-mva-b-vaccine_n_986765.html

9/29/11 08:44 AM ET

Spanish scientists at the National Biotech Centre in Madrid say a new vaccine could reduce HIV to a "minor chronic infection."

The researchers report that 90% of participants given the MVA-B vaccine showed an immune response to the virus and 85% kept the immunity a year later.

According to a press release from The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC):

The success of this vaccine, CSIC's patent, is based on the capability of human's immune system to learn how to react over time against virus particles and infected cells. “MVA‐B vaccine has proven to be as powerful as any other vaccine currently being studied, or even more,” says Mariano Esteban, head researcher.

MVA‐B is an attenuated virus, which has already been used in the past to eradicate smallpox, and also as a model in the research of many other vaccines. The “B” stands for the HIV subtype it is meant to work against, the most common in Europe.

Once injected, the vaccine teaches the volunteer's immune system to track down and fight off the virus. "It is like showing a picture of the HIV so that it is able to recognize it if it sees it again in the future," Esteban says.

The researcher added “If this genetic cocktail passes Phase II and Phase III future clinic trials, and makes it into production, in the future HIV could be compared to herpes virus nowadays." [...]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/235211.php

"Article Date: 30 Sep 2011

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have modified HIV in a way that makes it no longer able to suppress the immune system. Their work, they say in a report published online September 19 in the journal Blood, could remove a major hurdle in HIV vaccine development and lead to new treatments.

"Something about the HIV virus turns down the immune response, rather than triggering it, making it a tough target for vaccine development," says David Graham, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology and medicine. "We now seem to have a way to sidestep this barrier," he adds.

Typically, when the body's immune system cells encounter a virus, they send out an alarm by releasing chemicals called interferons to alert the rest of the body to the presence of a viral infection. When the immune cells encounter HIV, however, they release too many interferons, become overwhelmed and shut down the subsequent virus-fighting response..."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-09/nioa-rdc090611.php

"Public release date: 7-Sep-2011

Researchers Discuss Challenges to Developing Broadly Protective HIV Vaccines

New Advances Provide Reason for Optimism

The human body can produce powerful antibodies that shield cells in the laboratory against infection by an array of HIV strains. In people, however, recent research shows that these broadly neutralizing antibodies are not produced in an efficient or timely enough fashion in HIV-infected individuals to effectively block progression of infection, appearing only after a person has been infected with HIV for at least one year -- by which time the virus has fully established itself within the body. In a Perspective article appearing this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, assert that a key research goal is to develop HIV vaccines that prevent HIV infection by inducing more effective immune responses than those that occur naturally.

In their article, the authors examine the challenges of developing HIV vaccines that can effectively induce these broadly neutralizing antibodies. Specifically, they describe work under way to design structure-based HIV vaccines, as well as efforts to gain a better understanding of the evolutionary processes that human B cells undergo to produce broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies. The authors conclude that the availability of new research tools, together with the increased understanding of the human immune response to HIV, make them optimistic that an HIV vaccine that provides significant protection against acquisition of HIV infection can be achieved..."

Hide-and-Seek: Altered HIV Can't Evade Immune System

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have modified HIV in a way that makes it no longer able to suppress the immune system. Their work, they say in a report published online September 19 in the journal Blood, could remove a major hurdle in HIV vaccine development and lead to new treatments.....

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/235463.php

"Article Date: 04 Oct 2011

HIV Infection And Transmission Rates Double With Hormonal Contraceptive Usage

Women who use a hormonal contraceptive have double the risk of becoming infected with HIV-1, and are also twice as likely to pass the infection on to their sexual partner, researchers from the University of Washington, Seattle, reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The raised risk is especially notable among those using injectables. The authors informed that over 140 million adult females around the world use hormonal contraception, including long-acting injectables or oral pills..."