The four-decade quest for an HIV vaccine yields new hope
While the reality is far more nuanced than recent hype suggests, a breakthrough strategy is finally offering fresh tools for battling this devastating virus.
When virologist José Esparza began working with the World Health Organization to combat the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, he and many of his colleagues were convinced that a vaccine would be the solution—and that it would come quickly.
Their optimism rested on solid science: Researchers knew that people produce antibodies to the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. And spurring the body to produce antibodies was already a common and successful vaccine strategy that had drastically reduced cases of measles, smallpox, and many other diseases. Tackling AIDS seemed equally doable.
“We thought that it was going to be a piece of cake,” says Esparza, a former senior advisor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who is now affiliated with the
