UC Santa Cruz researcher says a possible HIV vaccine is promising

Wednesday UC Santa Cruz released information about research work being done at the university to find a vaccine for the HIV infection.

University researcher since 2006, Phil Berman is a Baskin Professor of Biomolecular Engineering and since then has built a vaccine research effort thanks to almost $2.6 million in grants.

UC Santa Cruz said Berman is optimistic when it comes to a vaccine that would protect against the HIV infection.

Berman’s lab believes it is far enough along to consider clinical trials within the next two years.

The vaccine was redesigned from one that Berman invented while at Genentech and led through clinical testing at VaxGen. This earlier vaccine, called AIDSVAX, was used in combination with another experimental vaccine in a large-scale clinical trial in Thailand involving 16,000 people. UCSC says the trial showed that the combined vaccine was safe and 31 percent effective in preventing new HIV infections.

Berman has been working to on an AIDS vaccine for nearly 30 years.

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