Scientists are making progress toward a future HIV vaccine by showing that multiple vaccine components can work together to trigger a strong immune response. A team from several leading research institutes tested a strategy that uses several “germline-targeting” vaccine pieces at the same time. These special vaccine components are designed to activate rare immune cells that have the potential to develop into broadly neutralizing antibodies — the kind that can recognize and fight many strains of HIV.
Instead of focusing on just one part of the virus, researchers gave several vaccine elements together in both animal models and primates. The immune systems in both groups successfully responded to multiple vaccine targets at once. This means it may be possible to “train” the body’s defenses to start producing several important lines of HIV-fighting cells at the same time.
In primates, scientists saw a brief period where different immune responses competed, but all the key immune cells still developed correctly. In mouse models, an mRNA-based version of the vaccine showed strong results in activating multiple immune pathways at once.
These findings suggest a multi-part HIV vaccine is biologically possible. It could eventually help simplify future vaccine schedules and improve protection against many HIV strains.
