Clinical trial evaluates heterologous prime/boost regimens in preventative HIV vaccination

Almost 40 million people worldwide live with HIV/AIDS, with an estimated 2.5 million new cases per year. Therefore, there has been a large global effort to develop an effective vaccine against the virus. HIV-1 vaccine development has been challenging but recent clinical trials have been promising.

A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation discusses the results from a clinical trial that evaluated the immune response following different HIV vaccine regimes. Nicole Frahm and colleagues tested prime-boost regimes combining a New York vaccinia HIV clade B (NYVAC-B) vaccine and a recombinant adenovirus 5–vectored (rAd5-vectored) vaccine in a cohort of healthy volunteers.

Individuals that received the rAd5-vectored vaccine followed by the NYVAC-B vaccine exhibited the strongest anti-HIV immune responses. A regime in which individuals received the NYVAC-B vaccine prior to the rAd5-vectored vaccine was not as effective.

The results from this study will be important for the design of further clinical trials to evaluate potential HIV-1 vaccine regimes.