By Matt Lavietes -
NBC News
As COVID-19 crippled nearly every corner of the Earth early last year, researchers around the world rushed to develop a vaccine to defend against the deadly respiratory coronavirus.
And just a few months later - in a process that normally takes years - several vaccines were ready for global distribution.
By comparison, some 40 years after the first reports of what became known as AIDS, scientists are still scratching their heads to develop a vaccine against the virus that causes the deadly disease: HIV.
However, as the anniversary of the first injections of the coronavirus vaccine approaches, experts say its rapid development and life-saving efficacy may have brought researchers closer to cracking the code to develop a vaccine against it. HIV
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"There is a lot of energy and enthusiasm among scientists to see how quickly some of the science has developed to alleviate the coronavirus," said Rowena Johnston, vice president and director of research at amfAR, an international research group on AIDS without profit motive.
"I think there has been a great soul searching on how the scientific enterprise can be improved so that we can better serve the people we are trying to help," he added.
Before coronavirus vaccines, the fastest developing vaccine - from sampling to application - was mumps in the 1960s. The process took about four years.
Members of a non-governmental organization make a red ribbon with candles, a universal symbol of awareness and support for people living with HIV, on the eve of World AIDS Day in Ahmedabad, India, Tuesday, November 30, 2021. Solanki / AP
The federal government has conducted five large-scale Phase 3 HIV vaccine trials, all of which have failed.
Their third phase 3 trial was notable for increasing the likelihood of HIV infection among those vaccinated.
Scientists largely blame the relentless evolution of HIV within the body.
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"The scale of mutations that HIV produces is beyond anything that is even in the same range as what the coronavirus does," Johnston explained.
"If you draw a genetic tree of all the different variants of HIV within a person's body, it is almost as equivalent to all the genetic variations of all the flu viruses of all the people in the world for one year."
Therefore, HIV is always one step ahead of the antibody response that failed vaccines trigger in the body, said Dr. Ronald Desrosiers, a professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who was one of the first scientists to study SIV, the monkey disease from which HIV is believed to have originated.
"The antibodies present in a person can neutralize the virus that was present three months ago, but they cannot neutralize the virus that is replicating at the present time," Desrosiers explained.
"Developing a vaccine was expected to be very, very difficult, and those predictions have come true," he lamented.
But as difficult as an HIV vaccine may be, scientists - including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the president's chief medical adviser - say that it is "likely" that an a build on the pioneering technology used to make coronavirus vaccines.
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Two of the coronavirus vaccines, those made by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, were the first vaccines to trigger immune responses using messenger RNA, or mRNA, a genetic material that our cells read to make proteins.
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Coronavirus vaccines with mRNA have been shown to be more effective at fighting the virus than Johnson & Johnson's vaccine, which resembles more traditional flu vaccines and does not use mRNA.
Moderna announced in August that it would soon launch a phase 1 clinical trial for two new mRNA-based HIV vaccines, giving scientists new hope.
"If it were about another way to administer the vaccine ingredients, I would say that it probably would have no chance of succeeding where others have failed," Johnston said.
However, what has piqued Johnston's interest is that the mRNA coronavirus vaccine is delivered into the body through its lipid nanoparticles.
Johnston said that lipid nanoparticles not only help deliver the drug, but also act as adjuvants, a substance that helps boost the effect of a drug.
And in this case, the adjuvant's stimulating effect works "to a greater extent than any conventional vaccine," he said.
"When I heard about this, it gave me some hope that we finally have a really new concept to test in HIV," he said.
"So let's put our optimistic hats on and hopefully this may be what gets us to the finish line," he added.
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Aside from the scientific breakthroughs it prompted, according to some experts, the coronavirus pandemic may also indirectly help the HIV vaccine effort by generating more interest in science.
“The world has increased its scientific knowledge.
I think the opportunity to take advantage of that in HIV and make people more aware of the vaccine and engage in research and vaccine introduction has grown exponentially, ”said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, an organization without for-profit organization promoting global HIV treatment.
But others worry that the enthusiasm to prevent the coronavirus pandemic has come at a cost to HIV research.
When the pandemic hit the world last year, many of the world's leading HIV researchers turned the tide on the coronavirus.
For example, Johnson & Johnson hired Dr. Dan Barouch of Harvard Medical School, who has studied HIV for more than 15 years, to help develop its coronavirus vaccine.
Scientists who did not engage in COVID-19 research started 36% fewer new projects last year compared to 2019, according to a Northwestern University study published in October.
“Sometimes people chase the exciting novelty, follow the dollars.
But we have to get people back to HIV, or there will be a price [to pay], "said Georgetown University Infectious Diseases Initiative Director Jeffrey S. Crowley, former director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. of the White House.
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Regardless of whether the coronavirus will lead to scientific improvements or setbacks, some scientists claim that the defeat of HIV will depend to a greater extent on common sense global health practices.
"Any pandemic is a day away, and in a way we learned it initially with HIV, but this pandemic has made us see it in an extremely strong way," recalled Dr. Kenneth Mayer, professor at Harvard Medical School. who is the director of medical research for Fenway Health.
"What happens in one part of the world does not stay in that part of the world," he added.