HIV Vaccine Antigens Delivered Via mRNA Technology

The New York-based nonprofit scientific research organization IAVI and Moderna Inc. announced today that the first doses had been administered in a clinical trial of experimental HIV vaccine antigens at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

The Phase 1 trial, IAVI G002, is designed to test the hypothesis that sequential administration of priming and boosting HIV immunogens delivered by messenger RNA (mRNA) can induce specific classes of B-cell responses and guide their early maturation toward broadly-neutralizing antibody (bnAb) development.

The induction of bnAbs is widely considered to be a goal of HIV vaccination, and this is the first step in that process.

The immunogens tested in IAVI G002 were developed by scientific teams at IAVI and Scripps Research and delivered via Moderna's mRNA technology.

"We are tremendously excited to be advancing this new direction in HIV vaccine design with Moderna's mRNA platform. The search for an HIV vaccine has been long and challenging, and having new tools in terms of immunogens and platforms could be the key to making rapid progress toward an urgently needed, effective HIV vaccine," says Mark Feinberg, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of IAVI, in a press statement issue don January 28, 2022.

"We are grateful to all of our partners and especially to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for funding this trial."

IAVI G002 not only tests priming of the desired immune response using mRNA delivery of eOD-GT8 60mer but also assesses the ability of a boosting immunogen to induce further maturation of B cells.

Given how mRNA vaccines can be produced, this platform offers a more agile and responsive vaccine design and testing approach, potentially shaving off years from typical vaccine development timelines.

IAVI is a nonprofit scientific research organization that addresses urgent, unmet global health challenges, including HIV, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases. Read more at iavi.org.