| PhD
Students: |
Raúl
Ruiz
Gemma Coma |
| Technician:
|
Ruth
Peña
Esther Jiménez |
The
best long-term hope for controlling
HIV-1 epidemic is a safe and affordable
vaccine. So far, the lack of success
in achieving an effective vaccine
can be attributed to the nature
of HIV itself and its mechanisms
and routes of infection. New vaccinations
strategies are urgently needed,
such as therapeutic vaccines,
targeted at infected individuals
that would at least enhance the
natural immune defences of the
host, and thus control the spread
of the disease.
The design of an
effective vaccine requires a basic understanding of:
- How the immune system
is affected and destroyed by HIV-1 to be able to counteract
its effects (Immunopathogenesis),
- The mechanisms that control
immunity in order to enhance them during vaccination.
- Finally, the responses
to HIV must be monitored before, during and after activation.
The
area on immunopathogenesis focuses
on the control and pathogensesis
of the AIDS virus in man built
on the work produced by a group
at the Royal Free Hospital in
London, that until recently the
coordinator was a senior member
of. They were one of the first
to describe that the consequences
of HIV infection included.
- The decay of CD4 T cells.
- The destruction of the
lymphoid tissues
- The massive mortality
of cells not directly infected by HIV-1 but nevertheless
occurring with this disease.
At
present, we are investigating
the lack of regeneration of immune
responses in HIV-1 infected patients
under highly active antiretroviral
therapy and ways to modulate such
responses in order to enhance
the responses elicited by vaccination.
As
the control of the HIV epidemic
requirement will be achieved without
an international effort, our group
participates and evaluates the
efficacy of national and international
clinical and vaccine trials.
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