Current advances and challenges in HIV-1 vaccines

Recent advances in science, which have aided HIV-1 vaccine development, include an improved understanding of HIV-1 envelope structure and function, expansion of the pipeline with innovative vaccine strategies, promising multi-gene and multi-clade vaccines that elicit cellular immunity, conduct of clinical trials in a global network, and development of validated techniques that enable simultaneous measurement of multiple T cell vaccine-induced immune responses in humans. A common feature of several preventive vaccine strategies now in early clinical trials is their ability in nonhuman primates to attenuate clinical disease rather than completely prevent HIV-1 infection. One vaccine concept has been tested in large-scale clinical trials, two are currently in efficacy trials, and one more is poised to enter efficacy trial in the next few years. Simultaneously, expanded efforts continue to identify new designs that induce mucosal immunity as well as broadly neutralizing antibodies.