New Delhi, Aug 28 : A team of scientists in the US is working to develop vaccines that can protect against HIV, Covid, and potentially other diseases, with a single dose. The team from MIT and the Scripps Research Institute treated mice with a vaccine that combines two different adjuvants, materials that help stimulate the immune system. They found that the combination helped generate more robust immune responses.
The dual-adjuvant vaccine was found to accumulate in the lymph nodes, where white blood cells known as B cells encounter antigens and undergo rapid mutations that generate new antibodies. The vaccine’s antigens remained there for up to a month — allowing the immune system to build up a much greater number and diversity of antibodies against the HIV protein than the vaccine given alone or with one adjuvant. According to MIT professor J. Christopher Love, the approach may mimic what occurs during a natural infection and could lead to an immune response so strong and broad that vaccines only need to be given once. “It offers the opportunity to engineer new formulations for these types of vaccines across a wide range of different diseases, such as influenza, SARS-CoV-2, or other pandemic outbreaks,” Love said. Separately, Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine maker is also set to develop an mRNA-based HIV vaccine, RIA Novosti, the Russian Information Agency, said.