Experts call for intense search for HIV vaccine

WASHINGTON — A crash program to develop an AIDS vaccine may be the only way to reduce a worldwide death toll that could reach 70 million by 2020, some of the world's leading researchers say.

Twenty-four scientific leaders advanced a formal proposal in the journal Science on Thursday calling for a network of coordinated research centers dedicated to the sole purpose of developing and testing an AIDS vaccine.

Co-authors of the proposal include two Nobel prize winners, the heads of major public health departments of the U.S. government, and AIDS researchers from France, South Africa, England, Switzerland, China, India and the United Nations.

In concept, said co-author Dr. David Baltimore, the proposal is rather like a Manhattan Project against AIDS.

"In the sense it is a commitment to use the skills of the scientific community to solve a problem, it is like the Manhattan Project," said Baltimore, a Nobel laureate. "But the Manhattan Project depended on secrecy, and we're doing the exact opposite."

Baltimore said the research would be conducted openly, with information and discoveries shared quickly and completely between labs.

Despite more than 20 years of effort, researchers have yet to find the ideal approach against AIDS. The human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, that causes AIDS attacks the very cells in the body's immune system that play a key role in protecting against infection.

Most vaccines cause the production of antibodies that neutralize an invading microbe, but HIV attacks the immune system itself and antibodies made against HIV are ineffective.

Vaccines that have been tested have failed to trigger the immune system response needed to kill or control HIV, and researchers are still uncertain exactly how to prompt a vaccine-induced defense against the virus.

As a result, the plan calls for each of the labs to take a different approach in an effort to find the best route to a vaccine defense.

"Increasing the diversity of approaches and coordinating the types of vaccines entering clinical trials are fundamental to speeding global HIV vaccine development," the authors write.

Vaccines usually are developed by private pharmaceutical companies, but Baltimore said the problems and expense of developing an HIV vaccine make the traditional ways impractical.