An international group of scientists has discovered two antibodies that reveal for the first time a "weak point" in the AIDS virus (HIV) , which could lead to the creation of an effective vaccine against this autoimmune disease.
Experts from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and other institutions analyzed the blood of 1,800 patients infected with the virus and identified two antibodies, PG9 and PG16, that could neutralize it. These antibodies are more potent than the others known to date and act on the gp120 protein, which HIV uses to infect healthy cells . Dennis Burton, scientific director of The Scripps Research Institute (California) and co-author of the study published in the journal Science , affirms that "the potency of these antibodies is surprising" and is confident that "he has found the key to the successful vaccine ".
Since the AIDS pandemic emerged in the 1980s , more than 25 million people around the world have died from the virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are currently more than 33 million people infected with HIV .
