Vaccines, Immunology and Clinical Trials

HIV Vaccines

HIV vaccine development is complex. First attempts to develop a vaccine against HIV in the late 1980s were based on eliciting an antibody response, which is how most vaccines are thought to work. However, because HIV mutates rapidly, and its outer spike protein conceals itself from the immune system, creating the appropriate viral antigens to use in a vaccine proved remarkably difficult, and the approach was abandoned.