In a news conference held on May 5, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley announced that the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland received funding from a consortium to collaborate on a promising new HIV vaccine.
In a news conference held on May 5, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley announced that the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland received funding from a consortium to collaborate on a promising new HIV vaccine. Most of the funds are from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the consortium also includes MHRP, sanofi pasteur, Profectus Biosciences and the NIH.
“Through your generosity and vision you are making [IHV] not only a beacon of hope, but a real powerful force of healing. It makes us understand we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves by being here today,” remarked O’Malley.
COL Nelson Michael and COL Peter Weina, Deputy Commander, WRAIR attended the announcement ceremony in Baltimore and had an opportunity to speak.
“No one institution is able to do everything well, but by collaborating we can develop the synergies to make a breakthrough we might not be able to do by ourselves,”
said COL Weina. “MHRP decided to partner with the IHV because its current findings seemed promising.”
IHV will move forward with further preclinical development and Phase I/II clinical trials of a novel HIV vaccine candidate. The candidate immunogen, denoted as FLSC (Full-Length Single Chain), is designed to elicit strongly protective antibody responses across the spectrum of HIV-1 strains. Research will be lead by Dr. Gallo of the IHV, however, investigators from sanofi pasteur and MHRP will join IHV in the research.