A new study allowed scientists to discover the Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) structure: a discovery that will pave the way to the development of a HIV vaccine that may help prevent the AIDS disease.
This is a milestone in the Health sciences since no effective treatment has been proven effective in preventing HIV infection.
The Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease caused by HIV. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were about 2.5 million new cases of HIV in 2011 all over the world is affected by the virus and nearly 30 million people with AIDS have died worldwide since the epidemic began. Currently some drugs are able to manage and ease the infections however there is not yet any vaccine that could prevent the virus from infecting people.
Previous attempts of scientists to create a vaccine for the disease failed because of the elusive HIV envelope protein called Env.
Because the structure of the Env is complicated and fragile, scientists were faced with the challenge of creating the proper conditions for their close observation. Samples need to be right for atomic resolution imaging.
Scientists of the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), a non-profit organization engaged in biomedical science, led by Prof. Ian Wilson made a three-component Env model that was stable enough for the atomic resolution imaging. At the same time the structure virtually maintains the attributes of the envelope protein.
Using advanced technology and techniques in electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography, the researchers were able to get exceptionally detailed pictures of the HIV complex envelope protein.
A first in science history, this discovery of the HIV's atomic structure at the primary atomic level allows scientists to look at the disease in a new perspective and opens the door to the discovery of how the virus enters human cells and thus enables them to seek ways of preventing the infection.
"Now we all need to harness this new knowledge to design and test next-generation trimers and see if we can induce the broadly active neutralizing antibodies an effective vaccine is going to need," said Cornell University Prof John Moore, who also collaborated in the research, in an interview with The Telegraph.
