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OTTAWA � A University of Western Ontario virus researcher has a potential vaccine against HIV and AIDS that could be tested in humans next year if he can win approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Yong Kang is being supported by a Korean biotech company, Curocom Co. Ltd., which announced on Tuesday it will manufacture the potential vaccine according to pharmaceutical standards.

Kang says FDA approval should follow shortly, and adds that the vaccine has boosted the defences of macaque monkeys in the lab. No HIV vaccine has ever worked in humans.

�The vaccine has proven to stimulate protective immune responses in animals, and holds tremendous promise,� the university said in a statement.

Macaques can�t catch HIV, so the experiments so far don�t deal with actual infection. But the vaccine has been effective in stimulating the macaques� immune systems to recognize HIV.

�Dr. Kang has been issued one of only a few HIV vaccine patents in the world and has developed one of a handful of technologies to make it this far in a process where dozens of other potential vaccines from much larger institutions have failed,� added Western�s vice-president, Ted Hewitt.

The next step is clinical trials � a three-stage series of tests in humans to show whether a drug is safe and effective. Kang says Phase 1 could begin in a year.

He says the unique feature of his vaccine is that it has two parts � a whole, dead HIV-1 virus and a genetic fragment that is the part of the virus that stimulates an immune response.

Most previous vaccines have used just a small part of HIV�s genetic material, he said.

�If it works as what we see (in) the immune responses in animals, I think we have a fairly good chance� of developing a vaccine that works, he said in an interview. �But again, we have to try this out.�

Curocom has committed to the first two levels of human trials, at an estimated cost of $15 million. If those work well, he said, the full cost of three phases could reach $50 million.

So far, the hunt for an HIV vaccine has met failure around the world, and experts are reluctant to hail new entries too quickly.

At an international AIDS meeting in August, following updates on the status of HIV vaccine trials, there was wide consensus the world is not close to a vaccine.

�Don�t count your chickens,� cautioned virologist Earl Brown of the University of Ottawa, on hearing Tuesday that Western hopes the vaccine will be ready in three years for use by those carrying the HIV virus. It hopes to use the vaccine in non-infected people within six years.

AIDS is a tough problem for vaccine makers for two reasons, he said. First, the virus changes its shape quickly.In addition, he said, �it has a way of sort of ducking the immune system, plus it�s attacking the immune system.�

�There have been at least a score or two� of potential vaccines tested already without success, he said.Meanwhile Curocom is taking the research seriously enough to set up a Canadian operation, Curocom Canada, in London, Ont., near Western.

Kang has been working on AIDs and HIV vaccines for 20 years. He is a professor of virology in the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western.

�Hopefully it will work,� he said.

Checking whether the virus helps infected people is a faster business than learning whether it prevents infection in the first place. For that part, the researchers will have to vaccinate large numbers of volunteers, and find out whether they later become infected with HIV through daily living.

� CanWest News Service 2006

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can you post the original link please....