Anthony Fauci Director,
NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
The upward trajectory of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and the unacceptably high plateau of new infections in the US underscore the urgent need for a safe and effective HIV vaccine. To speed the pace of HIV vaccine discovery, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has increased HIV vaccine research funding more than 6-fold since 1990, to an estimated $357 million for fiscal year 2002. At NIH, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is the lead agency for HIV research, accounting for more than 75% of HIV vaccine spending. In addition to an extensive portfolio of basic research, NIAID-supported investigators are testing a diverse range of vaccine strategies in animal models and human volunteers. NIAID recently launched the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), a global research network with the capacity to conduct all phases of clinical HIV vaccine research. On the NIH campus, the NIAID Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center conducts all stages of HIV vaccine research, from basic investigations to clinical trials. NIAID also supports numerous other programs in HIV vaccine development, such as a network of Simian Vaccine Evaluation Units; and HIV Vaccine and Design Development Teams, which are public-private partnerships of scientists from industry and/or academia who have identified specific vaccine concepts amenable to accelerated development. These efforts build on NIAID’s long involvement in the development of vaccines for other important diseases such as hepatitis B, pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b, and pneumococcal infections. Promising results of recent tests of candidate AIDS vaccines in animal models will be discussed (i.e., prevention of disease in animals challenged with pathogenic strains of SIV or SHIV), as will the prospect of slowing the dynamics of the HIV epidemic with a vaccine that does not provide “sterilizing” immunity, but reduces transmissibility by enabling the immune system to significantly lower viral load. In addition, important scientific challenges will be discussed, such as the need to further illuminate the correlates of immune protection in HIV infection (e.g., the role of neutralizing antibodies). Contact Author about this Abstract
