Commentary by Roger Martin Martin writes about research at KU for Kansas media and in a webzine. Contact Martin at rmartin@kucr.ku.edu or (785) 864-7239. Martin also can be heard on KANU 91.5 FM public radio Archives More articles by Roger Martin Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

KU researcher optimistic about live AIDS vaccine

by Roger Martin

Twenty years ago this month, the Centers for Disease Control took official notice that people were dying of AIDS. Since then, AIDS has killed 22 million people. Every day, another 15,000 get infected.

About 30 vaccines have been tried against the disease. None has succeeded.

Now, a microbiologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Bill Narayan, has developed an AIDS vaccine that contains live virus. He's convinced of its safety. In fact, he's willing to take it himself.

Before we get to that, let's do a quick review of AIDS and vaccines. The AIDS virus is a profoundly simple organism: a chunk of genetic material wrapped in a protein envelope. And it's hopelessly dependent. It uses the machinery of our own cells in order to replicate and kill us.

One way to stop a virus is to introduce it to the immune system before a real battle starts. You know how a sheriff waves a scrap of an escaped convict's clothing under a bloodhound's nose? That's what doctors do when they give you a vaccination. They're helping your immune system catch the scent of the enemy and prepare for battle.

Some vaccines, like Narayan's, contain whole copies of live viruses -- but crippled so they can't hurt you. Other vaccines contain only fragments of a virus' outer coat or a slice of its genetic material.

Early this year, an Emory University researcher, Harriet Robinson, reported good news about an AIDS vaccine. First, she injected some genetic material from the AIDS virus into test animals. Second, she injected a protein to rev up their immune systems. Third, she injected the animals with the AIDS virus. And they fought it off.

The test only ran a few months, so Narayan thinks it's too early to declare victory. He says it takes at least two years to know that an AIDS vaccine has worked. One of his products did splendidly until the end of year two.

Then five of six test animals got AIDS.

But he's hopeful about his latest vaccine. After four years, six of six animals given the vaccine and then injected with the virus are all doing fine. Some of the vaccine virus remain in the lymph nodes of these animals.

Narayan thinks that for an AIDS vaccine to succeed, either the whole virus or parts of it have to stay in the body. The virus is an enemy the immune system must always keep in mind.

Of the 20 or so vaccines under development today, only Narayan's uses live virus. Because of the controversy about the use of live virus, his group is working to get the weakened virus to die after a while -- yet still leave reminders of itself in the body.

If he succeeds, people at risk of infection would take the vaccine before they were ever exposed to the AIDS virus. Narayan doesn't think this vaccine can help those who've already been infected and are progressing to AIDS.

He believes so deeply in the product's safety that he's willing, he says, to take the vaccine himself.

Not everyone thinks that making yourself a guinea pig is a good idea, but some medical pioneers have done it. For example, Nobel laureate Gerhard Domack injected cancer cells into his body to prove cancer was not infectious. If Narayan is willing to take his own medicine, we should applaud, for this is a disease that requires courage as well as compassion to fight.

We should also keep our fingers crossed, given the record of AIDS vaccines.