Hope for new AIDS protection in mouse study - USATODAY.com
As scientists struggle to find a vaccine to prevent infection with the AIDS virus, a study in mice suggests hope for a new approach — one that doctors now want to test in people.
The treated mice in the study appeared to have 100 percent protection against HIV. That doesn’t mean the strategy will work in people. But several experts were impressed.
“This is a very important paper (about) a very creative idea,” says the government’s AIDS chief, Dr. Anthony Fauci. He didn’t take part in the research.
The new study involved injecting mice with a protective gene, an idea that’s been tested against HIV infection in animals for a decade.
In the nearly 30 years since HIV was identified, scientists haven’t been able to find a vaccine that is broadly effective. One boost came in 2009, when a large study in Thailand showed that an experimental vaccine protected about a third of recipients against infection. That’s not good enough for general use, but researchers are now trying to improve it.
Researchers reported the new results in mice online Wednesday in the journal Nature. They hope to test the approach in people in a couple of years. Another research team reported similar success in monkeys in 2009 and hopes to start human tests even sooner.