Experimental AIDS vaccine showing promise in monkeys | The Raw Story

Experimental AIDS vaccine showing promise in monkeys | The Raw Story

Amazing news, "Dr. Louis Picker of the Oregon National Primate Research Center, whose study appear in the journal Nature, said he thinks it will be possible to have a vaccine ready to test in people within three years." While there have been many claims in the past about being able to hold HIV/AIDS at bay with a cocktail of drugs this is the first time an experimental vaccine has shown these kinds of results. With further tests and refinement over the next three years I expect that before 2020 we will have a fully functioning AIDS vaccine something that would truly change the world. AIDS has killed some 25 million people and infects some 33 million a viable vaccine is clearly more desirable than a cocktail of drugs one must take everyday. "Picker and colleagues use a relatively harmless virus called cytomegalovirus (CMV) as a transport system to take the experimental vaccine into the body." This is yet another example of using nature to fight against the worst pathogens, by using a virus already common amongst the human population this lowers the risk of secondary infections, the building up of tolerance o the drugs, and also hopefully will prevent HIV/AIDS from becoming resistant to it. "The breakthrough here is in using a viral-delivered vaccine that persists -- essentially using an engineered virus to thwart a pathogenic virus," said Robin Shattock, a professor of mucosal infection and immunity at Britain's Imperial College, who was not involved in the research."