One more step in the fight against AIDS

The AIDS vaccine seems to be a little closer today. Researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in the United States have discovered a curative vaccine against AIDS, although it has not yet been tested in humans, its success in monkeys draws a hopeful scenario for this vaccine, which will test in humans soon.

The associate director of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of the university, Louis Picker, has ensured that "with this strategy, we managed to 'teach' the body of the monkeys to have better prepared their defenses and to fight the disease". It could be a revolution in the treatment of AIDS , as Picker explained: "It has always been thought that infections with HIV and with SIV, its equivalent in apes, are permanent and that in the best of cases it could only be control the response to the virus, but this is the first time that an investigation shows that one of the viruses that cause AIDS could be cleared . "

This research could be a vital advance for AIDS to go from being a chronic disease to a curable disease. It is worth remembering that more than 34 million people suffer from AIDS throughout the world.

The study with monkeys

The investigation of this vaccine against AIDS was carried out with macaque monkeys and is based on combining cytomegalovirus (CMV) with SIV. The finding came when they found that genetically modified CMV helps generate T lymphocytes, which in turn are responsible for finding and destroying cells infected by SIV .

The beginning of the study was with a group of monkeys that were infected with SIV, more deadly than the virus that affects humans. After two months they were given the vaccine in question and three years later half of them no longer had the virus .

Now it remains to investigate why only a positive result was achieved in half of the monkeys that were infected and, of course, it remains to see to what extent this research will help the fight against AIDS in humans. In any case, it is an important step against AIDS that has been echoed by prestigious scientific publications such as Nature .