Approach toAIDS vaccineshows hopein monkeys

　　AIDS researchers reported Monday they had designed a vaccine that they believe may do what no other vaccine has done before — protect people from infection with the virus. So far the team at the Institute of Virology at the University of Maryland in the U.S. has only tested monkeys. And they note that people trying to design a vaccine against the AIDS virus have repeatedly failed. But they think their design, based on the mechanism the virus uses to attach to the immune cells it targets, is the best yet. “In several animals, including monkeys, we were able to generate neutralizing antibodies that are not type-specific but broadly cover various types of HIV,” Dr. Robert Gallo, who helped discover the AIDS virus and who heads the institute where the work was done, said in a telephone interview. Making a vaccine against HIV is difficult because the virus integrates itself into cells, and because it attacks the very immune cells that are normally stimulated by a vaccine. Although dozens of vaccines are in various stages of development, no one thinks a truly protective vaccine has been designed. At best, doctors now hope that one or more of the vaccines may simply help people to live a little longer with the virus, or perhaps to reduce the ease with which it is transmitted from person to person. (SD-Agencies)