New Research At Duke Could Point To HIV/AIDS Vaccine

New research from Duke University may help make an effective vaccine for HIV-AIDS. Four years ago a potential vaccine showed some protection for about a third of recipients, but was not an overall success. Barton Haynes is a senior author on the latest study and the director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. He says the research looks at how that original vaccine achieved limited success.

Barton Haynes: "What we found was that these antibodies don't work directly on the virus particle itself, but rather appear to work on cells that are infected with the virus. And what these antibodies do is that they glom onto the cells that are infected and target those cells for other cells to come in and to kill them."

Haynes says the next step is to find out how to strengthen the response to the vaccine. He says technology and methods being used in the HIV-AIDS research may also help design vaccines for pandemic flu and tuberculosis.