GIBaren aurkako txertoaren bila

Abstract

HIV is the causative agent of one of the most lethal pandemics in human history, AIDS. Although in recent years HAART therapy has considerably reduced death rate, new infections keep arising. Therefore, a preventive vaccine remains the most promising tool to end the pandemic. However, the virus has developed many nat-ural strategies to evade the immune system and, moreover, the special characteristics of the neutralizing antibodies that a vaccine aims to elicit, makes vaccine design ex-tremely challenging. The efficiency of the RV144 clinical trial and the promising re-sults obtained by passive immunization with broadly neutralizing antibodies suggest that the objective of obtaining an effective vaccine is closer. Until now, a myriad of vaccine strategies have been attempted but the expected results have not been yet obtained. However, the thorough research on the structure of the viral immunogens and the antibodies that recognize them might pave the way for the design of future effective immunogens.