University of Oxford to commence HIV vaccine trials

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The University of Oxford announced on June 6 it would be commencing phase one clinical trials on a novel vaccine it hopes can be used to treat HIV.

This marks the first step in a potential medical breakthrough that could put an end to a 40-year wait following the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

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The goal of the trials is to evaluate the "safety, tolerability and immunogenicity" of a mosaic vaccine which could stand to be effective against a number of variants of HIV-1, the most common form of the disease.

The preliminary trials will be conducted on 16 HIV-negative adults between the ages of 16-65 who are not at high risk of infection.

They will receive a single dose of the jab, followed by a booster shot four weeks later.

The trial is part of the European Aids Vaccine Initiative (EAVI2020), an international collaborative research project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 health programme for research and innovation.

"An effective HIV vaccine has been elusive for 40 years," said Professor Tomáš Hanke, a professor of vaccine immunology at the Jenner Institute of the University of Oxford and the lead researcher on the trial.  "This trial is the first in a series of evaluations of this novel vaccine strategy in both HIV-negative individuals, for prevention, and in people living with HIV for a cure."

The vaccine being tested works in a different way than other HIV vaccine candidates in the past. 

Most HIV vaccine candidates work by inducing antibodies generated by B-cells - a type of white blood cell -  but the Oxford one induces the immune system’s potent, pathogen obliterating T cells - a different type of white blood cell involved in adaptive immune response - targeting them to highly conserved and therefore vulnerable regions of HIV, which the team describe as an "'Achilles' Heel' for most HIV strains."

At present, prevention of HIV largely focuses on behavioural and biomedical interventions such as voluntary medical male circumcision, condom use, and anti-retroviral drugs used prior to exposure.

The UN estimates 37 million people across the globe were living with HIV in 2020, with 1.5 million new infections reported in that year alone. 1.7 million children worldwide were reported to be suffering from the disease.

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690,000 deaths owing to complications from HIV were also reported in 2020.

At the end of December 2020, 27.4 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy, up from 7.8 million in 2010.

Dr Hanke added: "There is strong evidence that undetectable HIV viral load prevents sexual transmission. Nevertheless, the pace of decline in new HIV infections failed to reach the Fast-Track Target agreed upon by the United Nations General Assembly in 2016: fewer than 500,000 new infections per year in 2020."

"Even in the broader context of increasing antiretroviral treatment and prevention, an HIV-1 vaccine remains the best solution and likely a key component to any strategy ending the AIDS epidemic."

Dr Paola Cicconi, a senior clinical research fellow at the Jenner Institute and the trial's chief investigator, said: "Achieving protection against HIV is extremely challenging and it is important that we harness the protective potential of both the antibody and T cell arms of the immune system."

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The trials will be taking place in the UK and the researchers hope to be able to report the results of the trials by April 2022.

There are also plans to extend the trials into Europe, Africa and the US, which have also suffered under the spread of HIV and AIDS.

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