HIV Vaccine Development: Progress and Prospects

joint with Molecular Mechanisms of HIV Pathogenesis

Organizer(s): Norman L. Letvin, Nina Bhardwaj and Barney S. Graham

Sponsored by Wyeth Vaccines Research

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Summary of Meeting:

The magnitude of the world-wide public health problem posed by HIV is well known. Control of the AIDS epidemic will only come with the development of a successful vaccine. The potential efficacy of both cellular and humoral immune responses in controlling HIV replication is now well documented. However, the ability of the virus to mutate away from recognition by T lymphocytes and neutralizing antibody continues to frustrate attempts to make a successful vaccine. A number of recent observations have dramatically increased the optimism of those involved in HIV vaccine development. It is now clear that vaccine-elicited cellular immune responses can contribute to containing the level of viral replication and delay the progression of clinical disease following an AIDS virus infection in nonhuman primates. It has also recently been shown that monoclonal antibodies that neutralize a diversity of HIV isolates can protect against HIV infection of nonhuman primates when passively administered to animals prior to challenge. Finally, a number of novel vaccine strategies are showing promise in early clinical trials in eliciting relevant immune responses in human volunteers. A meeting on HIV vaccines in 2004 will be extremely timely, in that data from large scale human trials of promising vaccine candidates will be available at that time for presentation. A number of early phase trials with a newer generation of vaccine candidates will also just be initiated and data will be available from those trials. Finally, new data from basic immunology and AIDS immunopathogenesis studies will be available for presentations that bear on the creation of new strategies for HIV vaccination. The Keystone HIV Vaccine Meeting has become recognized as the most important forum for presenting new data in this important area of research. The meeting is attended annually by the most important investigators in the field worldwide. There is every reason to suppose that this will continue to be the case.

Discounted Abstract Deadline: December 11 2003

Discounted Registration Deadline: February 12 2004

We have reached maximum abstract capacity for this meeting.

We gratefully acknowledge additional support for this conference from:

We gratefully acknowledge the generous grant for this conference provided by:

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Grant No. 1R13AI58748-01

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