THE ROLE OF VACCINE PERSISTENCE IN PROTECTION CONFERRED BY LIVE ATTENUATED SIV

世界卫生组织承认艾滋病毒/艾滋病是世界头号传染病。医生和科学家都知道，阻止这种疾病的最好方法是开发一种疫苗，以阻止全世界每天发生的1.4万例艾滋病病毒新感染。困难在于，科学家们不知道一种艾滋病疫苗是否需要刺激抗体的产生，即血液中识别病毒并阻止其感染新细胞的分子，还是在感染进一步扩散之前消灭病毒感染细胞的杀伤T细胞。或者，疫苗可能需要做一些不同的事情才能完全有效。NIBSC的研究小组正在研究一种艾滋病病毒的动物模型，他们发现，首先接种了一种失能型艾滋病病毒的动物对致病菌株具有抵抗力。他们正在与阿姆斯特丹的科学家合作，后者拥有一种经过基因工程改造的艾滋病病毒，这种病毒只有在给予特殊药物的情况下才能生长。NIBSC的研究小组将使用这种新病毒来了解残疾艾滋病病毒如何作为疫苗发挥作用。这一信息将使我们离世界迫切需要的疫苗更近一步。

The World Health Organisation recognises HIV/AIDS as the number one infectious disease in the world. Doctors and scientists know that the best way to stop this disease would be to develop a vaccine to stop the 14,000 new infections with AIDS virus that occur each day worldwide. The difficulty is that scientists do not know whether an AIDS vaccine needs to stimulate the production of antibodies, molecules in the blood that recognise the virus and stop it from infecting new cells or killer T cells that eliminate virus infected cells before the infection spreads further. Alternatively the vaccine may need to do something different to be fully effective. The team at NIBSC are studying an animal model of HIV and have found that animals vaccinated with a disabled form of the virus first are resistant to disease causing strains. They are collaborating with scientists in Amsterdam who have a genetically engineered AIDS virus that can only grow if it is given a special drug. The team at NIBSC will use this new virus to understand how the disabled AIDS virus works as a vaccine. That information will put us one step closer to the vaccine that the world desperately needs.