HYMS gets funds to research HIV
Posted on 4 July 2005
Dr Charles Lacey, Honorary Reader in Sexual Health and HIV Medicine, at the Hull York Medical School, is part of a team that aims to design a novel vaccine for HIV that can be used easily by women in developing countries.
Dr Lacey will work with colleagues at St George's Medical School in London and the HIV Prevention Research Unit of the Medical Research Council in Durban, South Africa. Their role in the project is to assist in the development of the new vaccines and then conduct the first phase 1 clinical trials in the UK and South Africa.
The Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative project is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. £240 million has been donated to 43 projects worldwide, with a significant proportion devoted to HIV research.
Every day more than 14,000 people become infected with HIV; 95 per cent of these people are from developing countries.
Although tremendous strides have been made in the last twelve months in getting people in poor countries onto anti-HIV treatment, there is still a crying need for new prevention technologies
Dr Charles Lacey
To contain the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, it is essential to develop an HIV vaccine that effectively stimulates the body's immune defence systems. The team aims to develop sustained protection of women against HIV-1 infection using an innovative, needle free approach to vaccination.
A vaccine for women is seen as particularly important - 76 per cent of young people infected in sub-Saharan Africa (aged 15 to 24) are female. A vaginal vaccine could protect women, their unborn children, and importantly would be female controlled.
The HIV vaccines are designed to be time-released into the lower genital tract through low-cost gels or silicone rings that will be inserted into the vagina. The team will engineer HIV vaccines so that they specifically target and activate immune cells resident in the cervico-vaginal mucosa. This is a completely new concept that sees vaccines as topical formulations designed to provide protection through repeated application.
Charles Lacey and his colleagues will play a crucial role in the development of the vaccines and the first assessments of human safety. Dr Lacey's research takes place in the research unit of the sexual health clinic in Monkgate, York.
Dr Lacey said: "Although tremendous strides have been made in the last twelve months in getting people in poor countries onto anti-HIV treatment, there is still a crying need for new prevention technologies. We will now be able to rapidly test some innovative but logical approaches that we think will deliver new insights and have a chance of success."
The HIV vaccine project is funded for five years and will take new mucosal HIV vaccine candidates into early human safety trials throughout that time. The research consortium is co-ordinated by Dr Robin Shattock at St George's Hospital, University of London.