But it just messes up the data a little bit too much for my taste. Further experiments may give us the answer. Robinson's goal is to test her vaccine in human trials in a year or two. But first she'll carry out a yearlong follow-up study in the monkeys. This new study will compare different methods of inoculation, as well as the number of immunizations needed to elicit optimal immune defenses, and will test more simplified vaccines as well.
Researchers hope to determine precisely what immune response the vaccine combination triggered.
Wayne Koff, Vice President for Research and Development at IAVI, also feels that Robinson's approach ought to be tested in humans. Until you begin to evaluate this vaccine concept in clinical trials, the utility of the vaccine remains in doubt. These are steps of a marathon as opposed to leaping from one end of the game to the other. Maybe so, but there are also new runners in what's become a hot race. In May, a team from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York and the Tulane Regional Primate Research Center reported that it's come up with a new hybrid SHIV virus, which triggers an immune response in monkeys that more closely mimics what occurs in people exposed to HIV, according to the authors of the study.