Tied down by its own receptor

摘要

The past 30 years have been marked by a long and discouraging search for an effective HIV vaccine. In 2009, the 'Thai trial' of the candidate vaccine RV144 was the first to demonstrate any success, measuring a 31.2% reduction in the rate of infection, although efficacy decreased over the first year after vaccination. The difficulty in developing a more effective vaccine has forced investigators to explore problems that are posed by other intractable pathogens, including persistence in the host, a high degree of variability of certain regions, masking of common regions, and pathogen-induced inhibition of host immunity. But on page 87 of this issue, Gardner et al. describe research suggesting that protection against HIV infection may be achievable through a gene-therapy approach, rather than by relying on eliciting protective immune responses by vaccination.