New blood screening technique identified antibodies with the ability to neutralize many strains of HIV
HIV researchers, using new methods developed by two biotechnology companies, discovered two new antibodies with the ability to neutralize many strains of HIV. They published their work in Science during the first week of September.
The achievement was spearheaded by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative(IAVI), a global nonprofit group that is coordinating and funding vaccine-development efforts. Read IAVI’s release here.
In 2006, IAVI launched Protocol G—an international collaborative study searching for antibodies that can neutralize the strains of HIV that circulate in the developing world. Working with doctors and clinics in Thailand, Australia, the U.S. and Africa, the group collected blood samples from 1,800 people who had been infected with HIV for at least three years without developing symptoms.
The samples from Thailand, which were used in the study, were contributed by MHRP led by LTC (Dr.) Robert Paris through the Department of Retrovirology, US Army Medical Component, Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (USAMC-AFRIMS) in Bangkok.