Scientists from the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology (GIVI) and the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have identified a gene that may influence the production of antibodies that neutralize HIV. This new information will likely spur a new approach for making an HIV vaccine that elicits neutralizing antibodies. Neutralizing antibodies, once produced in the host, can attack and checkmate an infecting virus. The research was reported in the September 5 issue of Science. Scientists have been striving in vain to stimulate strong protective antibodies with an HIV vaccine for years because these antibodies hold great promise for controlling HIV infection in humans. HIV is a type of virus called a “retrovirus,” which copies its RNA genetic material into DNA and incorporates it into the DNA of its host.
