Vaccine eradicates virus that causes AIDS in monkeys

9/13/13
 
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from FoxNews,
9/13/13:

Researchers from the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) have reported a major breakthrough in the field of HIV research, claiming they have created a vaccine that completely eradicates the virus that causes AIDS in some monkeys, Discovery News reported.

And the next step? Testing the vaccine in humans.

Their research, which was published in the journal Nature, showed that half of the monkeys they tested responded to the vaccine. The monkeys were infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which is similar to HIV in humans but 100 times more deadly.

“It’s always tough to claim eradication — there could always be a cell which we didn’t analyze that has the virus in it,” Louis Picker, of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute at OHSU, told the BBC News. “But for the most part, with very stringent criteria … there was no virus left in the body of these monkeys.”

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