Patti Singer, Staff writer
If you enjoy time alone and like being part of scientific research, this could be the study for you: staying isolated for 12 days in order to test an oral vaccine to prevent HIV.
"I think it would be great for students who need to write or study hard," said Dr. Michael C. Keefer, director of the University of Rochester Medical Center's HIV Vaccine Trials Unit.
URMC is the only center testing a pill that is a common class of virus called adenovirus with a protein that prompts the body to make an immune response to HIV. The vaccine is not made from actual HIV. The idea is to trick the immune system into thinking it is reacting to the real thing, Keefer said.
"That's a common principle in all our testing," said Keefer, whose unit is supported by the National Institutes of Health. "The vaccines are made to look like HIV but they're not HIV."
In this case, funding is through a collaboration with the Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center in Boston and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. The project is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. John Treanor, chief of infectious diseases at UR Medicine's Strong Memorial Hospital, also is involved in the study.
Most HIV vaccines have been injections. This pill vaccine is made of a type of adenovirus with genes from the outer portion of HIV. It's not enough to activate the virus, said Keefer, who explained by saying the mechanism of HIV is analogous to that of a car.
"It needs everything," Keefer said. "Steering wheel, gas, spark plugs, engine. Our vaccines are the shell of the car. No gas, no engine. Nothing to make it go."
He called the vaccine "a fender," and said the key is to convince the immune system it's seeing the whole car.
URMC has conducted other studies of HIV vaccines, and it runs isolation studies for illness such as the flu. In this case, participants will be isolated so researchers can document any side effects of the adenovirus as a means to deliver the vaccine. Once their stay is over, the participants will be followed for several months.
PSINGER@DemocratandChronicle.com
For more information
Participants in a URMC study of an HIV vaccine pill must be between 18 and 40 years old, in good health and not infected with HIV. For details, call (585) 756-2329.
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