British researchers have reported a "giant leap forward" in the search for a vaccine against HIV.
Two London colleges have worked together on the project, which they say uses a similar approach to those used for new vaccines against malaria and the Ebola virus.
The project has involved researchers at Royal Holloway College and Imperial College, London.
The prototype vaccines have been engineered from two chimpanzee adenoviruses. Early studies of immune responses suggest they can be triggered, they report in the journal Vaccine.
Researcher Professor George Dickson, from Royal Holloway, said: “Discovery of an effective vaccine against HIV is one of the greatest challenges in medical research.
"Our work makes a contribution to the growing and profound body of knowledge about the nature of protective immune responses required for an effective AIDS vaccine.
"But success will require multidisciplinary efforts like the UK HIV Vaccine Consortium to take discoveries in the lab onwards through preclinical testing and manufacture, into early human trials.”
Analysis of T cell responses to chimpanzee adenovirus vectorsencoding HIV gag–pol–nef antigen Vaccine 4 November 2015; doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.10.111 [abstract]
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