Scientists once hoped that HIV could be tamed by stimulating the immune system to make antibodies that neutralize the invaders. But while antibodies can protect against measels or polio, none has proved potent enough to fight AIDS. So researchers have been trying to harness another part of the immune system: killer T-cells.
This approach is showing promise. In the Jan 17 issue of "Nature", scientists at Merck and at Duke and Harvard universities report that an experimental vaccine enables monkeys to keep the virus at bay for more than a year-although the vaccine doesn't prevent infection. It uses a modified cold virus to carry an HIV-like gene into the body's cells. The cells use use the gene's instructions to make a viral protein, which they display on their surfaces. Then the immune system makes killer cells to attack any cell displaying the protein. But even this may not be suffiecient. Another report in "Nature" suggests that the virus in some cases can mutate drastically enough to escape the attacks. -John Carey
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