Experimental mRNA-based Preventive HIV Vaccine Phase 1 Trials

The NIH announced a new study to test three mRNA-based HIV vaccine candidates. This study follows an announcement in January from IAVI about another mRNA-based HIV vaccine study. This snapshot compares the two studies.

Research Fundamentals: What is an endpoint?

The next installment of our Px Pulse series Research Fundamentals, explaining key concepts in HIV prevention research, is up. In this episode, Px Pulse host Jeanne Baron and Matthew Rose, a veteran HIV advocate and now Director at Global Health Strategies, look at endpoints in research.

Endpoints are a crucial component in every clinical trial but they are not always well understood. In addition, advocates can and should play a role, reviewing endpoints and interrogating how well the trial will serve communities that need HIV prevention.

Joining us to explore all this are:

  • Dave Glidden, Professor of Epidemiology & Bio-statistics at UC San Francisco
  • Erica Lessem, Senior Strategist for NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene, former Deputy Executive Director, Treatment Action Group
  • Meagan O’Brien, Senior Medical Director of Early Clinical Development & Clinical Experimental Sciences at Regeneron

Listen to learn how endpoints are used in clinical research, why they change overtime, and what matters most about endpoints for advocates and researchers alike.

HIV Vaccines: The basics

This introductory PowerPoint slide set reviews basic concepts, and provides an overview of research status and recent developments.

HIV Vaccine Research: Building on the Lessons from COVID

Building on the lessons of COVID, HIV vaccine advocates can mobilize for an HIV vaccine research and access agenda. This two-page document gives suggested messaging.

Essential Principles & Practices for GPP Compliance: Engaging stakeholders in biomedical research during the era of COVID-19

This document is a new tool to help guide stakeholder engagement in COVID-19 research. Built from the Good Participatory Practice Guidelines for Biomedical HIV Prevention Trials (GPP), this document responds to needs expressed by both researchers and advocates as the world watched COVID-19 research progress with unprecedented speed and urgency.

Biomedical HIV Prevention Trials: Results, milestones and more

This graphic shows the updated status of large-scale prevention trials through 2022 and the impact of COVID-19 on each trial.

Another version of this graphic is available here (same content, different visual Treatment U=U).

Vaccines Approaches in COVID-19 Vaccine Development

HIV represents one of the most challenging viruses ever encountered. Though an HIV vaccine has yet to be licensed, vaccine science has made enormous strides as it confronts this rapidly-mutating virus. Years of painstaking work to develop vaccines for HIV are now making possible the record-breaking timelines that researchers aspire to for the development of COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccines research has generated more scientific knowledge about immune function and responses than ever existed. And key vaccine platforms are fast-tracking the development and testing of experimental vaccines for COVID-19 today.

Excerpted from Five “P”s to Watch.

Leveraging the Vaccines Enterprise for COVID-19 Vaccine Research

In many ways, the collaborative research movement grew up around Vaccines. Thanks in large part to HIV advocacy, out-of date research models that were competitive and closed-door are increasingly yielding to more transparent and collaborative research and development efforts—in both the HIV and COVID-19 responses.

Building on big science partnerships, data sharing and collaboration pioneered over the last 15 years of Vaccines research and development, global initiatives are marshalling the talents, experiences and resources of key stakeholders. And just as HIV laid the foundation for more effective partnerships in research, lessons from the COVID-19 experience can also inspire greater collaboration and broader involvement by a range of players in the vaccines research effort.

Excerpted from 5 “P”s to Watch.

HVTN 702 and the Quest for Vaccine

One of the most anticipated HIV vaccine efficacy trials in the field—HVTN 702, or Uhambo—stopped vaccinations early after a scheduled review showed the vaccine did not offer protection.

The trial team will continue to follow participants over the next year to monitor safety and answer urgent questions raised by the trial results. In this episode of Px Pulse, HVTN 702 Protocol Co-chair and AVAC Board Member Linda-Gail Bekker explores what the trial team hopes to learn during the follow-up period and how these answers might impact the ongoing pursuit for an HIV vaccine. AVAC’s Regional Stakeholder Engagement Advisor Nandisile Luthuli also joins the conversation to shed light on the trial team’s plans for continuing community engagement, and AVAC’s Director of Research Engagement, Stacey Hannah, talks about the successes of the trial.

Vaccine Efficacy Trials Pipeline

This infographic shows a timeline for each of the three major vaccine efficacy trials proposed or underway now.