Moderna, a biotech company that you may have heard of recently, is now available for human trials. According to a submission to the US National Institutes of Health Clinical Trial registry, Moderna is expected to begin human trials for its first ever mRNA-based HIV vaccine. This means that we are now watching in real-time the progress of a revolutionary technology to arm humanity against all viruses and not just the coronavirus.
The experimental vaccine will be administered to 56 people between the ages of 18 and 50 as part of Phase 1 human trials. Modernas HIV vaccine functions in the same way as the widely-used and highly effective mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. This vaccine teaches how to build an immune response, by producing proteins that can prevent the virus from attacking cells.
Although HIV treatment methods have advanced a lot since it was first discovered decades ago, vaccines could be used to allow the body to produce broadly neutralizing antibody (bnAb), which is considered the holy grail of HIV researchers. Science Alert reports that vaccines have not been able trigger this response.
Scripps Research and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative developed a separate vaccine candidate using components of the mRNA vaccine shot but using a nonmRNA vaccine system. In Phase 1 trials, 97 percent of participants developed some level of immunity but were not able to completely stop HIV infection.
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Modernas' candidate is based entirely on an mRNA system, a promising new chapter in using cutting-edge technology to combat some of the most deadly viruses currently facing humanity. It will not only be a game-changing discovery about the power and potential of mRNA more than the one that currently prevents millions of people from suffering severe or fatal COVID-19 attacks, but it could also change the future of disease fighting around the globe.
