Australia joins reenergised quest for vaccine

Australian researchers have joined a worldwide $30-million initiative to accelerate the search for an effective HIV vaccine.

Funded by the European Commission, the European AIDS Vaccine Initiative brings together scientific collaborators from across Europe, Australia, Canada and the US. Professors David Cooper, Anthony Kelleher and Miles Davenport from the Kirby Institute in Sydney alongside Professors Damian Purcell and Stephen Kent from the Doherty Institute in Melbourne will form the Australian contingent.

“Our Australian research community has been at the vanguard of scientific discoveries that have had global implications for the way we prevent HIV and how we diagnose and treat people living with HIV. But despite the tremendous successes we’re seen, an effective vaccine remains elusive,” said Professor Kelleher. “This project creates a unique opportunity for us to pool the knowledge and expertise of the top minds in HIV research to move much more quickly towards that goal.”

Recent scientific advancements — such as the isolation of antibodies that are able to block HIV infection and new developments in synthetic biology — have reenergised the quest for a vaccine against HIV. “This collaboration will allow us to build on the enormous scientific progress that has been gleaned over the last few years,” said Doherty Director, Professor Sharon Lewin. “We’ll be taking the latest discoveries from the lab through to preclinical testing and manufacture and into early human trials more quickly than we could ever do in isolation from each other.”

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