Reference no: EM133313677

You are a researcher at a pharmaceutical company working to develop vaccines against emerging infectious viral diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis C, and Ebola. One of your colleagues is working on an HIV vaccine and had breakthrough results in animal trials. In primate and feline studies, the vaccinated animals were found to resist SIV and FIV infection, respectively, in over 99.9% of all test cases. Knowing full well the ethical dilemma involved in human clinical trials of his vaccine, he injected himself with his vaccine and waited for the development of T cells and antibodies recognizing the vaccine. He then deliberately transfused a sample of blood-group compatible, HIV-tainted blood into his body. (There was a sufficient amount of the tainted blood sample remaining for biochemical testing, and live virions of HIV were confirmed to be present within the sample.)

After two years of monitoring and testing, the researcher consistently tests as HIV-negative on regular ELISAs and nucleic acid tests, exhibits normal T cell counts, and does not suffer from any preliminary signs of HIV infection. Using your understanding of HIV and adaptive immunity, provide and describe a mechanism of action for this vaccine. (Your mechanism of action should provide a potential way by which your immune system is trained to fight off HIV infection after exposure to the vaccine, and the basic mechanisms of how this could occur. Yes, this is pie-in-the sky speculative, but it's better than what we have now, which is bupkus.)