HIV find could help vaccine makers

A human cell infected with HIV

The long hunt for a vaccine for HIV continues as scientists announce another potential molecular weapon which the jab could use.

Their latest discovery is an "antibody" which can bind to sugars which are found on the surface of the virus - and neutralise it.

However, many years of laboratory, animal and human testing lie between this finding and the launch of a vaccine.

HIV defeats the human immune system by attaching to, entering, and ultimately killing cells called T helper cells, which the body uses in the fight against infection.

Scientists are struggling to come up with a vaccine that can produce antibodies which can recognise HIV and bind to it.

This is because the surface of HIV is disguised by a coat of common sugars, which make the virus "look" like a normal human cell to the immune system.

However, although the virus is coated in the same sugars as a human cell, their arrangement is different - offering a chance for the body to tell the difference.

The latest antibody, isolated by researchers at the Scripps Institute in the US, appears to be able to distinguish the pattern of sugars on the surface of HIV.

However, it has only so far been tested on sugars in the laboratory.

Freak find

Professor Ian Wilson, one of the scientists leading the project, said: "Nothing like this has ever been seen before."

The antibody was a freak find in the blood of an HIV-positive patient about a decade ago.

The results of the Scripps research were published in the journal Science.

A spokesman for the Terrence Higgins Trust, an HIV charity based in the UK, said it was too early to be talking about this antibody as the source of a vaccine.

She said: "This is very early research, although it is very interesting to have found an antibody like this.

"The whole field of HIV vaccine research is hunting for antibodies like this which may be able to gain a response."