Tregs and the Gut: New Vaccine Completely blocks HIV in monkeys

[leela]

http://www.aidsmap.com/Novel-immune...-in-monkeys-human-trials-planned/page/2902377

Excerpt:

The vaccine, whose success at blocking infection was described by its own designers as ‘surprising’ and ‘unexpected’, appears to work by stimulating the production of a previously unknown group of CD8 T-cells that stopped the monkeys’ CD4 cells from recognising SIV as a foreign invader, thereby preventing an immune response to SIV. This suppressant effect - which works in the opposite way to a traditional vaccine - means that the SIV is deprived of the SIV-specific immune-activated CD4 cells it needs in order to proliferate and establish an infection in the body.

The vaccine consisted of inactivated SIV administered alongside doses of familiar bacteria – in the first case the TB-suppressant bacterium BCG, and subsequently with gut bacteria of the Lactobacillus genus, including one type commonly used in probiotic supplements. This suggests that if human studies replicate the success seen in monkeys (by no means assured in vaccine studies) the vaccine could be administered in a drink.