THE ROAD TO AN HIV VACCINE

Scientists Come Together to Meet a Shared Goal

2006 marked the 25th year we have known about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the world is still far from developing an effective vaccine against it. The main reason for the slow progress is that the scientific challenges are extremely difficult. A related problem is that the researchers working on overcoming these challenges have thus far worked mostly in small, independent teams. While they have made many important findings, what’s needed is a larger-scale, more cooperative approach—one that can guide the entire HIV vaccine research community toward its goal as quickly as possible.

The foundation is a member of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, an alliance of organizations from around the world that has developed a shared scientific strategic plan to accelerate HIV vaccine development. Top priorities for the Enterprise include vaccine discovery—that is, studying a variety of innovative approaches to eliciting anti-HIV immune responses—and standardizing laboratory protocols so researchers can compare results and coordinate their efforts. In July, the foundation announced $287 million in grants to support projects in these two areas.

The grants support 16 highly collaborative research consortia that bring together 187 investigators from 22 countries. These investigators are pursuing a number of cutting-edge strategies. For example, one group is using state-of-the-art computer-design techniques to engineer novel molecules that trigger antibodies to neutralize HIV. To access the computer power needed for the project, the investigators are exploring ways to use the idle time of thousands of personal computers around the world to run research calculations over the Internet.

The grants also support new central service facilities—three immunology laboratories, a research specimen repository, and a data and statistical management center. These facilities will help scientists to compare data using standardized techniques and to share data, in real time, so advances by one team can rapidly contribute to progress by others.

In December, the investigators who are part of the consortia met in Seattle to discuss their projects. The meeting brought together leading HIV vaccine researchers from around the world under one roof, an important step toward the kind of cooperation needed for this effort to succeed.