India set to make headway in HIV vaccine research

To be established by the Translational Health Sciences and Technology Institute under the Department of Biotechnology in partnership with International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the laboratory will be located in Faridabad.

The institute will have up to 40-50 staff with close to 10 scientists pursuing various avenues to find out a candidate HIV vaccine, sources told Deccan Herald. 

The research aims to understand the biological processes connected to the HIV infection to design a novel vaccine. The focus will be on the subtype-C of HIV found in India predominantly. Over the last two decades, more than 30 vaccine candidates against HIV was tested worldwide, including two in India. None had come even close to the commercialsation stage as the virus seemed to have more tricks under its sleeve than what the scientists thought.

Despite a vast array of candidate vaccines tested in clinical trials, only four had reached the clinical efficacy stage before 2009 and all had resulted in unsatisfactory outcomes.This opens up scope for trying out new strategies and test new candidate, which will be done at Faridabad centre using high-throughput screenings.

One strategy would be designing new antigens that will induce neutralising antibodies against the virus. Though this remained one of the major focus areas in AIDS vaccine research, there is not much success till date. IAVI funds projects on AIDS vaccines at Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, here. But once the new laboratory is in place, it will have stronger linkage with Indian scientific community to explore new routes.

The chief executive officer of IAVI, Seth Berkley visited India earlier this month when he met key Indian policy makers and Parliamentarians to discuss how the process can be taken forward. IAVI insisted on establishing a long-term translational research programme with adequate funding to bring a HIV vaccine closer to reality.         

On the cards

*The Translational Health Sciences and Technology Institute jointly with International AIDS Vaccine Initiative to set up research centre.

*The institute to have up to 40-50 staff with nearly 10 scientists.

*Focus of research will be on the subtype-C of HIV.

*More than 30 vaccine candidates against HIV was tested worldwide, including two in India.

*Only four vaccine candidates reached the clinical efficacy stage before 2009 with unsatisfactory outcomes.