Scientists unveil promising new HIV vaccine strategy

Env is a protein involved in the HIV virus. Scientists have known its function and purpose in the virus for a while, but have not been able to produce a vaccine that counteracts it, until recently. The purpose of Env proteins is to break into host cells and cause infection. They can change their shapes to get into different cells through different receptors, and that's why it has been so difficult to create a vaccine targeting them. The new vaccine should be able to modify a short section of the Env protein, and keep it in the "pre-infectious" state, so that even if it does get into the cell it cannot infect it. This vaccine has worked in mice and rabbits and is currently being tested on monkeys. The scientists claim that this vaccine elicited antibodies in just 8 weeks in mice, making it the first vaccine to elicit such a desirable response.
This vaccine could be a great step forward in the field of medicine. Creating a vaccine for HIV would help so many people live longer, healthier lives. If this vaccine makes it to the public, it will definitely take off. We have been searching for an HIV vaccine for so long, and it's so reassuring that there has been a breakthrough. Getting rid of HIV would be such an advantage to humans because now we wouldn't have to worry about passing on the disease or receiving it from someone else. Many cases of HIV transmittance happen because people are unaware that they have the disease, so creating a vaccine would get rid of that all together. I think this is an excellent use of resources, and I hope this vaccine proves successful.

link: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/17131.php
article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181126105516.htm

Treating HIV Like Spam

David Heckerman is a Microsoft Research scientist as well as a medical doctor who has found similarities between HIV mutations and spam. In the late 1990's, Heckerman created the spam filter by using machine filtering. At first, the filter worked by filtering spam from other emails by finding specific words. Spammers then caught on to this and started ti manipulate the messages to look the same to the human, but different to the computers. Heckerman then changed the filter so that it filtered out emails that were meant to collect money.

The researcher began to find interest in finding the treatment for HIV. He stated, "Spammers mutate their spam messages to work around our filters, and HIV mutates itself to avoid attack by our immune

system." Based on this analogy, Heckerman and his team used machine learning to find weak links in mutated HIV. Their first approach was finding out where the immune systems of people who were infected by HIV, but not extremely ill were attacking HIV. They compared the location of this attack to people who were infected and very sick. The researchers did find some differences in the location of the attacks between the controlled and non-controlled. The other method was to simulate the physical properties of the protein after mutation and see which mutations destabilized the proteins. The results for the 2 methods were quite similar. 

Heckerman and his team have a new and unique approach to treating HIV. Heckerman's next step is to find a safe and effective vaccine that will attack vulnerable regions instead of attacking at random. This research could lead to a breakthrough in treating a virus that kills 1.8 million people yearly. Being able to relate his research on spam to HIV will hopefully have a significant impact on many people's lives.

Improving the effect of HIV drugs by the use of a vaccine

One of the primary actions after being diagnosed with HIV is to take antiretroviral drugs, HAART, to stop the virus from reproducing.  However, the virus can still reproduce at slow rates in "reservoirs" such as in the genital tract, brain, and bone marrow.  These reservoirs can lead to infections and non AIDS related death.  A vaccine was developed to attack the viral protein "Tat" which is produced in the early stages of HIV infections.  Using a small amount of Tat, researches were able to make a vaccine that prevented the progression of the infection.  This vaccine used in conjunction with the antiretroviral drugs may not only stop the virus from reproducing, but stop the virus from creating reservoirs as well.  
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150429090114.htm

This article was a really interesting because it shows the beginning to a vaccine that could eradicate HIV.  For now, this finding can halt the reproduction of the HIV infection in a patient but hopefully this vaccine will be as widespread as the measles vaccine.  Perhaps this can prevent thousands of cases of HIV in the world.  

Protection Without a Vaccine?

In February 2015, scientists at Scripps Research Institute said that they were able to develop an artificial antibody that, after being injected into monkeys infected with HIV, was able to inactivate the virus and protect them from future infections. They haven't limited this to just HIV, but Ebola, malaria, influenza and hepatitis as well. Dr. Michael Farzan, among other scientists at Scripps, believes that this treatment is a very large step forward against HIV. According to the article, it is not a vaccine, but rather re-engineering the animals in order to boost their immunity and cause resistance. The first human trial is still underway and there are several others planned for the future. 

 Whether or not it will work in humans is still a question. Again, it is not a vaccine and therefore may take some convincing in the community. Vaccines work by triggering the immune system to create antibodies in order to fight off the disease by introducing weakened or dead pathogens. Their work, however, is a gene therapy isolating particular genes that produce the powerful antibodies and also synthesizing artificial ones, because vaccines aren't always effective. The reason HIV vaccines aren't very effective is because there are multiple strains and a vaccine can only protect against one of them. Dr. Baltimore states that it is essentially going around the immune system rather than trying to stimulate it. 

I think that it's an interesting idea, although a human trial is necessary before I can have a proper opinion on it. It's understandable why people may not want synthetic modification in their bodies because who knows how long it might take to see any repercussions, if there are any. Vaccines are still very important, but if this can help with diseases where vaccines fail, then it could be a very good and useful things. But again, a human trial is necessary because even if it worked in their animal testing, that doesn't mean it will be guaranteed to work with humans the same way.

New HIV Molecule Proven to Protect Cells from Virus

        Scientists have been conducting research on the HIV virus and its genetics and have created and begun testing a new vaccine that partially protects monkeys from an HIV-like infection. This article suggests that scientists are homing in on the ingredients for a HIV protective vaccine that could potentially be sent off for human trial. The Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) prime-boost vaccine offers partial protection  to monkeys from acquiring the disease by about 80%.  On the contrary, those individuals that became infected, the vaccine regimes reduced the amount of virus found in the bloodstream. Scientists are now working on a human-adapted vaccine for experimental trial. 

        I found this article to be very interesting and short, sweet and to the point. I know scientists have been researching HIV/AIDS for decades upon decades trying to find a preventative measure or cure. The risk of contracting HIV is real. I know many individuals personally who have been infected.  Could this be the cure?