SLU leads HIV vaccine study in U.S., Africa

Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center is leading the first HIV vaccine trial to be conduced simultaneously in the United States and abroad.

SLU researchers are testing an experimental vaccine that has never been tested in humans and is not produced from live virus or from infected human cells. The 18-month study is being conducted in St. Louis, Boston and Botswana, and is sponsored by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) of the National Institutes of Health. It is HVTN's first vaccine trial in Africa, where AIDS has devastated some communities.

Over 18 months, 42 people will be enrolled in the trial, with 36 people receiving the vaccine and 6 receiving a placebo.

"Scientists want to know more about this candidate vaccine because it seems to have the ability to make the immune system respond in ways that could help the body fight HIV," said Dr. Geoffrey Gorse, lead researcher on the study, in a statement. "This trial is called a phase I trial, which means that it will test to see that the vaccine candidate is safe and that it has an effect on the human immune system."