rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (02/06/85)
[ "AIDS vaccine progress reported", Associated Press dispatch in 1/1/85 Boston Globe, page 5. Quoted without permission. ] Newport Beach, Calif. - Scientists have for the first time identified an antibody that inactivates the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome virus in laboratory experiments, a step toward development of an AIDS vaccine, a researcher said yesterday. Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute, who headed one of the two teams that announced discovery of the likely AIDS virus last April, said the antibody knocks out the ability of the AIDS virus to infect cells. But Gallo warned that the discovery "does not prove you're going to be successful in finding a vaccine." Asked if he believes an anti-AIDS vaccine can be developed, Gallo replied: "I am hopeful....but it's really hard to say when." Considerable research must be done to determine whether the anti-AIDS anti- body will destroy the virus in the human body as effectively as it destroys it in the laboratory. Gallo described the discovery while talking to reporters attending a scientific conference in Newport Beach sponsored by the City of Hope Medical Center. He said the discovery, made only recently, has not been reported in a scientific journal. The so-called "neutralizing antibody" was identified by Dr. Marjorie Robert-Guroff in Gallo's laboratory at the National Cancer Institute and independently by Dr. Martin Hirsch at Massachusetts General Hos- pital, Gallo said. Reached in Boston, Hirsch confirmed the discovery of the antibody against AIDS, but declined further comment, except to say his findings will soon be published in a letter to the editor of a medical journal -- which he declined to identify -- and will be presented in April during an AIDS conference in Atlanta. The virus attacks a certain class of white blood cells called T-cells, which help the body ward off disease. The virus is called HTLV-III, and was discovered by Gallo and his colleagues last year. It is the third of a class of human viruses called human T-cell lympho- tropic viruses. A closely related virus, called LAV, or lymphadenopathy associated virus, was discovered about the same time by researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. A major question has been whether the viruses are identical. If they are very different, it could complicate the search for a vaccine. But Gallo said yesterday that HTLV-III and LAV essentially are the same despite a 5 percent to 10 percent variation in the genetic code which governs activities of the 104 different types of AIDS virus Gallo said have so far been isolated. It is not yet known whether those genetic differences mean the viruses act differently biologically, he said. If they did, it might mean that a vaccine effective against one variety of AIDS virus might not work against another. But, Gallo added: "Right now we can't say there's any important biologi- cal difference." ....