Research Fundamentals: An HIV Vaccine — What’s the challenge and what’s the science?

May 18, 2022

Some vaccines are easier to develop than others. COVID-19 vaccines were developed with unprecedented speed, taking a matter of months to become available. A measles vaccine took about 10 years to develop. But the field’s been working on an HIV vaccine for 40 years.

In this episode, AVAC’s Jeanne Baron and co-host immunologist Katharine Kripke of AVENIR Health explore why HIV is different with two experts on vaccine research: Caltech’s Pamela Bjorkman and IAVI’s Vincent Kioi.

Learn how HIV has evolved like no other virus today to escape detection by the immune system. Learn why the right target on HIV is so hard to reach and how scientists are tackling it all.

Listen to the podcast (12:03).

Previous Research Fundamentals

• What is partial protection?
• What is an endpoint?

More Vaccine Resources

• HIV Vaccines in 2022: Where to from here?
• Experimental Medicine Vaccine Trials (EMVTs): Opportunities and challenges
• Phase 1 mRNA HIV Vaccine Trials — A snapshot of early phase trials testing mRNA-based HIV vaccines
• Webinars on Vaccine R&D
• AVAC's HIV Vaccine Awareness Day page