Triangle Researchers Search For AIDS Vaccine.(Brief Article)

2001 DEC 26 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Researchers at two of North Carolina's top universities are at the forefront of the international effort to protect mankind from AIDS.

Work on eradicating the virus that has killed more than 22 million people in the past 20 years has developed at least six prospective vaccines that will move into the first phase of human trials next year.

All of the blood samples gathered to measure their effect will be tested at Duke University, which became the central laboratory for an international research consortium called the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, or HVTN. Duke last year won the designation and a $27 million, 5-year grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Since HVTN was formed to streamline research and testing on drugs to inoculate healthy people from the virus, several drugs have progressed through human trials.

One in particular has entered a larger, phase II human trial in the United States to determine whether the drug works. That drug uses a canary pox virus as the vehicle to invade the body's immune system. Dr. Kent Weinhold, an immunologist who is the principal investigator for Duke's HVTN lab, said that drug is expected to move into the critical phase III trial by the end of next year.

"It's an absolutely exciting time in vaccine research, especially HIV vaccine research,'' Weinhold said. "We may be in a situation where we can pick and choose. That's a great situation to be in. Several years ago, ...