This is what the discoverer of the AIDS virus, Prof. Robert Gallo, promises at a press conference at Bar Ilan University
Avi Blizovsky
From the right: Dr. Robert Gallo, Prof. Moshe Koe, President of Bar-Ilan University and Prof. Binyamin Shardani, Head of the Zepadiya Institute for AIDS Research and Immunology in Bar-Ilan (Photo: Yoni Reif, courtesy of Bar-Ilan University)
Dr. Robert Gallo from the Institute for Virus Research at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, the discoverer of the AIDS virus, who is being hosted at Bar-Ilan University on the occasion of receiving the Dr. Comet Wallerstein Science Award for 2005, reported at a press conference upon his arrival that he had succeeded in developing an AIDS vaccine that would give the body Protection against a wide range of virus strains, also known for its rapid change.
According to Prof. Gallo, the lack of success in developing a vaccine against the AIDS virus was due to the fact that the vaccine was only effective against the type of virus from whose envelope the protein was taken for its production. The problem is that there are many varieties of the virus, and for each of the varieties and the virus itself also changes inside the body. In an experiment he conducted on monkeys, the vaccine prevented infection of monkeys that received it even if the attempted infection was with a virus of a genetically distant strain. According to him, this statement regarding the success of the experiment is being published for the first time, and the full scientific article will be published in about two months in one of the important scientific journals. In his last experiment, Gallo exposed a group of five monkeys to the AIDS virus, after giving them the vaccine, and a similar group of monkeys that did not receive the vaccine. The monkeys that were not vaccinated were infected with the virus, while the monkeys that were vaccinated were not infected with it. The main problem with the new ingredient is that the level of antibodies in the blood fades after 4-3 months. "We passed one hurdle," Gallo said, "but we have several more to pass before we succeed, if at all, in developing a vaccine against the disease."
The president of Bar-Ilan University, Prof. Moshe Keva said that the university has made a decision to allocate tens of millions of dollars in the coming years for research that will be done in the Faculty of Life Sciences headed by Prof. Haim Breitbart, which will be used to promote research that contributes to saving human lives. "Like all citizens of the world, and especially according to the Jewish tradition, we should all volunteer to help the millions of people dying from AIDS. I call on all young researchers and students to turn to research that will save human lives.
Gallo's strategy is to block the gate through which these molecules enter the T cells of the immune system and become part of their genetic cargo. This gate is called CCR5 and it is a receptor in the T cells that are usually the ones that look for the viruses to destroy them, and the hiding of the virus inside them prevents this action. This gate is shared by many strains of AIDS.
However, Dr. Gallo said that in order to reach the goal, it is necessary to expand the experiments to many more monkeys (and the price of each monkey is ten thousand dollars). If all goes well, it will be possible to start clinical trials in humans in about a year. Today, the research is supported, among other things, by funding from the large pharmaceutical company WHIET.
However, one of the remaining problems is that the level of antibodies fades after 3-4 months and that at the same time it is necessary to find a way to extend the duration of the presence of the vaccine in the body. According to Prof. Binyamin Shardani, head of the Zepadiya Institute for AIDS Research and Immunology in Bar Ilan, Gallo cooperates with the Bar Ilan Institute which, among other things, developed a molecule called AS101, which belongs to the type known as adjuvants that help maintain the presence of antibodies in the body.
Another collaboration between Prof. Gallo and the Leprosy Institute is the use of a drug developed at Bar Ilan against a virus called papilloma, which AIDS patients can also be infected with and which causes huge wounds on the skin all over the body, and today there is no treatment for them due to the patient's lack of an immune system. The material made at Bar Ilan makes them disappear.
According to Dr. Gallo, the AIDS virus is different from other viruses in that it does not have a vaccine, but there are treatments to turn its patients into chronic patients who can survive for many years. In contrast, for many other viruses, there is a vaccine but no cure.
According to him, in order to deal with the AIDS epidemic and try to stop it, patients in Africa should be treated with cheap drugs. He criticized the ethical pharmaceutical companies that show very unethical behavior in that they do not allow the production of cheap drugs but instead offer to give the same drugs to patients in the third world. Besides that, even if all the countries in the world mobilize to provide the drugs for free to Africa, there is still a need to increase education and training there on how to take the drugs so that they are effective. Another tension Gallo criticized was the lack of massive and invested effort since the discovery of the disease in the XNUMXs, in finding a vaccine for it.
Gallo also says that twice there was an opportunity to speed up the research and arrive at the development of a vaccine, but factors that he did not specify, prevented the flow of funds for these studies (Galo decided not to respond to the question of "the scientist" whether it was the administrations of Reagan and Bush). Today the field is bustling and there is extensive funding for progress in it thanks to a foundation established by Bill Gates, which is a competition to the US National Science Foundation.
AIDS research expert
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