Newscast: HIV Vaccine Ready For Human Tests

A Canadian made HIV vaccine is now seeking approval for human testing from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Dr. Chil-Yong Kang, a Professor of Virology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, has been working on the vaccine for 20 years. The vaccine recently passed animal safety tests in Canada, and Dr. Kang says he should soon have approval from the FDA. Although animal safety tests cannot determine whether or not the vaccine will actually work in humans, it can tell us if the vaccine is safe to inject without any adverse or abnormal effects.

The vaccine research is being funded by grants from the Canadian government as well as Sumagen, a South Korean pharmeceutical company. Since scientific research can be a risky investment, Dr. Kang says both the Canadian government and  North American and European companies are reluctant to put down large sums of funding. Dr. Kang says emerging markets like South Korea are more willing to take the risk.

The vaccine itself has similarities to Jonas Salk’s Polio vaccine, in that it is a killed whole virus vaccine. Essentially, it introduces weak amounts of HIV into the body, causing a patient to develop antibodies to kill the virus when it is encountered at full strength. Although the same approach has been used to prevent many other disesases such as influenza and rabies, it could previously not be done with HIV for two reasons. First, it was not possible to produce large enough quantities of HIV to make a vaccine, and it was also too dangerous. Dr. Kang and his team were able to solve these problems through genetic manipulation of HIV’s DNA, allowing them to safely produce large quantities of HIV. They then use chemicals and radiation to kill the genetically modified HIV, making it safe to inject in humans.

This story made national headlines in Canada earlier this month, and it is a particularly special story for me because Dr. Chil-Yong Kang is my father. Last week, I had a chance to visit his research labs and talk to him about his research. You can see this in the corresponding broadcast.