Prospects and challenges for prophylactic and therapeutic HIV vaccines

The best strategy for controlling the HIV pandemic remains the development of an efficacious prophylactic vaccine. Efficacy trials performed during this decade will yield information on the protective ability of first-generation vaccines. Several novel mixed-modality vaccines capable of inducing high-frequency CD8(+) T-cell responses in macaques are being evaluated in humans. New hope has been raised with the prospect of therapeutic HIV vaccines. However, the development of HIV vaccines remains a formidable challenge to both the industry and the scientific community.