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Margaret Johnston, Ph.D., Assistant Director for HIV/AIDS Vaccines & Associate Director, Vaccine & Prevention Research Program, DAIDS
In her presentation, Dr. Johnston discussed the status of products in clinical trials, basic research advances, and research priorities. Several vaccine designs are being pursued, including recombinant proteins, recombinant viral vectors, recombinant bacterial vectors, naked DNA peptides, pseudovirions, and replicons. HIV vaccine research is currently focused on improving envelope antigens, defining the role of CTL in protection, improving the breadth of vaccine-induced immune responses, identifying new approaches to induce CTL, exploring the efficacy of candidates in animal models and improving animal models. Programmatic priorities for FY 2000 are to complete the formation of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network and HIV Prevention Trials Network and meet development milestones for new products or protocols, including the prime-boost efficacy trial, perinatal transmission studies of vaccines, and trials with new products, including cytokine adjuvants, pseudovirions, p55, MVA, and VEE replicon.
Nine envelope and five canarypox products have been evaluated in phase I studies through NIAID support. In the two NIAID-supported phase II studies, these vaccines were safe and immunogenic. Internationally, NIAID launched a trial of a canarypox candidate in Uganda to determine whether participants can mount an immune response to the HIV subtypes, or clades present there.
In basic research, new studies are further elucidating how HIV interacts with cellular receptors. This information is being applied to develop new envelope antigens that could be more broadly immunogenic. Future priorities include additional phase II trials and testing the prime boost concept in several additional countries.
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