A new treatment from Oregon Health & Science University is looking to change that.
Dr. Louis Picker and his team of researchers are recruiting volunteers for the first human tests of their HIV vaccine.
The vaccine uses cytomegalovirus, a common strain of herpes that infects up to 80 percent of Americans,
to act as a sort of carrier of the HIV virus. Cytomegalovirus naturally
puts T cells – the cells HIV attacks and kills – on alert, so
introducing strains of cytomegalovirus into the body that have been
engineered to look like HIV will train the body to attack HIV, Oregon Live reports.
Though it contains genetic material similar to HIV, the vaccine is unable to infect volunteers with the virus.
The vaccine has cured 50 to 60 percent of infected
monkeys in animal trials, but getting the vaccine to market for humans
will cost several millions of dollars and may take almost a decade.
Researchers are looking for healthy people ages 18 to 60
to participate. People who are already infected with HIV are ineligible
for the trial.
People who participate in the trial may become inoculated
against HIV, but the marketable version of the vaccine will likely be
different from the original as the vaccine is fine-tuned.
According to Oregon Live, if the trial is successful,
OHSU hopes that vaccines against tuberculosis, hepatitis C and the
herpes virus using similar methodology will also go into trial phases.
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