(Image source from: popsci.com)

Moderna will start the human trials for the mRNA vaccine for HIV this week and the first-ever vaccine for coronavirus vaccine from Moderna rolled out last year. The clinical trials will commence on Thursday in the USA and they are expected to end on May 1st, 2023. Around 56 participants who are uninfected with HIV will participate in the clinical trials and they will be divided into four groups. This division is to test the combinations of two versions of the vaccine which is named eOD-GT8 60mer mRNA Vaccine (mRNA-1644) and Core-g28v2 60mer mRNA Vaccine (mRNA-1644v2-Core). The 56 participants will be given doses and they will be closely monitored to check about the adverse effects and their immune response after ten months.

This is the first trial in the world for an mRNA vaccine for HIV. Moderna is quite confident about this HIV vaccine after the vaccine for coronavirus turned highly successful. This vaccine for HIV is expected to work similarly to the coronavirus vaccine. It gets the cells in the human body to produce the spike protein for the HIV virus to trigger an immune response. The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and Scripps Research announced the results of the first phase results this year and the candidate was able to produce the expected immune response through naive B cells. The activation of these cells generated strong proteins called broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs). They are known to neutralize the fast-mutating HIV virus in the human body.

By Siva Kumar