Scientists have discovered new vulnerable site on the HIV virus that can be attacked by human antibodies in a way that neutralizes the infectivity of a wide variety of HIV strains.

The researchers from Scripps Research Institute Scientists working with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative said that an effective vaccine would work by eliciting a strong and long-lasting immune response against vulnerable conserved sites on the virus-sites that don’t vary much from strain to strain, and that, when grabbed by an antibody, leave the virus unable to infect cells.

Dennis R. Burton, professor in TSRI’s Department of Immunology and Microbial Science, said that HIV has very few known sites of vulnerability, but in this work we’ve described a new one, and we expect it will be useful in developing a vaccine.

The study was published in the journal Immunity.

Source: Yahoo news