Source: labiotech.eu<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vaccines are humanity\u2019s biggest achievement against infectious diseases. But could they defeat HIV, a particularly crafty virus? Jos\u00e9 Luis Cabero, CEO of Spanish biotech AELIX Therapeutics shared his experience developing an HIV vaccine at Labiotech Refresh in Barcelona.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The concept of a vaccine is simple \u2014 \npriming the immune system against a pathogen so that it is prepared to \nfight off the real thing. This simple principle has been one of \nhumanity\u2019s greatest weapons against disease, with achievements including\n the total eradication of smallpox and severely limiting the damage \ncaused by polio and measles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you take a look at vaccines as a whole, they\u2019re the most successful medical intervention ever,<\/em>\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Luis Cabero, CEO of AELIX Therapeutics. \u201cThere\u2019s no medical intervention that\u2019s been as impactful on mankind as vaccination<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Having spent a lot of his career in companies developing vaccines, Cabero turned his sights to a new target when he joined AELIX in 2017. Founded in 2015, the company aims to develop a therapeutic vaccine for HIV, a particularly formidable foe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in the 1980s, an HIV infection was essentially a death sentence. Nowadays, though, HIV-positive people can take daily antiretroviral drugs, which stop the virus from spreading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe world of HIV has experienced fantastic success with the development of antiretroviral treatments,<\/em>\u201d Cabero said. \u201c[People taking these drugs] are not contagious. They have the virus under control and they can have a normal life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But\n one big limitation is that the drugs cannot cure the infection \u2014 the \nvirus stays dormant and hidden within immune cells with the potential to\n rebound if the treatment stops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the long term, the drugs end up being the victims of their own success. \u201cBecause the treatment is successful, patients are living longer,<\/em>\u201d\n Cabero explained. Like everyone else, they start suffering from \nage-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. \nThe problem is that antiretroviral therapy can magnify the effects of \nthese conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Making a vaccine for the infection seems \nlike a step in the right direction for solving this issue, but there are\n lots of challenges to overcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne of the challenges is that the HIV virus is extremely smart,\u201d<\/em> Cabero said. \u201cThe virus mutates in the replication process very rapidly. If you design a vaccine to target fragments of a virus, or a part that mutates, the vaccine will be ineffective.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This problem has stalled the production of an HIV vaccine for decades. However, this is changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a revival \u2026 of science around the immune response to HIV,<\/em>\u201d Cabero said. \u201cThis\n has been the basis of some academic groups to make a new attempt to \ntackle a problem we\u2019ve had for many years that is not yet solved.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n AELIX\n aims to overcome these limitations by learning from the immune system \nof people that are innately better at keeping the HIV virus at bay, who \nare called \u2018HIV controllers\u2019. The company analyzed samples from around \n1,000 HIV-positive people and found that the immune systems of the \ncontrollers target specific regions of the HIV virus that \nnon-controllers\u2019 miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Equipped\n with this knowledge, AELIX has designed an HIV vaccine to convert all \npatients into controllers, removing the need for daily antiretroviral \nmedication. \u201cWe administer the vaccine a number of times, and the aim is to take away the antiretroviral treatment<\/em>,\u201d Cabero said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n AELIX is currently testing its vaccine in a phase I trial in individuals with early-stage HIV infection, with results expected late 2020. Last year, the company entered a partnership to test its vaccine in combination with Gilead\u2019s drug vesatolimod, which activates HIV viruses hiding in immune cells to make them vulnerable to immunotherapy. Results from the trial are expected by 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n AELIX has plenty of competition in designing an HIV vaccine, including a vaccine from the University of Oxford that allowed 5 out of 15 patients to stop antiretroviral therapy for weeks. However, according to Cabero, other teams design vaccines based on target regions using computer predictions, without much practical proof that the regions produce an effective vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe major difference of AELIX is that our immunogen is based on real data,<\/em>\u201d Cabero said. \u201cThe\n inventors have looked at the cells of the infected patients, analyzed \nwhich part of the virus is recognized by those cells, and derive the \nconstruction of the vaccine in this way. All other vaccines that have \nbeen tried are theoretical, in silico.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aside from vaccines, there are many different approaches in development to reduce our dependence on antiretroviral therapies. For example, the company TC Biopharm is developing genetically engineered T cell (CAR-T) therapies that could tackle the HIV virus. The company Abivax is developing a drug that can attack the HIV hidden within immune cells, providing a functional cure for the condition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n An alternative approach is using the gene editing tool CRISPR\/Cas9, which has entered a storm of controversy after the tool was reportedly used to gene edit babies to express an HIV-resistance mutation, potentially putting their health at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While there are many modern methods for fighting HIV, the field of vaccines is one of the few that has stood the test of time with many other infectious diseases. It\u2019s likely that, whoever crosses the finish line first, vaccines are going to play an important role in HIV treatments to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: labiotech.eu Vaccines are humanity\u2019s biggest achievement against infectious diseases. But could they defeat HIV, a particularly crafty virus? Jos\u00e9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[230,228,151,52,229,231,227,184],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aids-hiv","tag-aelix","tag-beat","tag-could","tag-hiv","tag-infectious","tag-therapeutics","tag-vaccines","tag-virus"],"yoast_head":"\n