HIV vaccines: where we are and where we are going

As the HIV-1 epidemic continues to spread world wide, the need for an effective vaccine remains urgent. Efforts to develop such a vaccine have been hampered by three main factors: (a) the extraordinary ability of the virus to mutate; (b) inability of most known specificities of anti-HIV antibodies to neutralise HIV primary isolates consistently; and (c) lack of understanding of the correlates of protective immunity to HIV infection. In view of the complex biology of HIV-host interactions, the most fruitful avenue may be development of multivalent HIV immunogens tailored to HIV isolates in specific geographical locations.