'Shotgun approach' to tackle HIV

The best way to develop a HIV vaccine could be for scientists to adopt a "shotgun" approach rather than trying to engineer "magic bullet" antibodies, research has found.

Scientists from the Rockefeller University have found that diverse groups of antibodies that work in packs to hunt the virus could be more effective than the specially engineered "super antibodies" that have been concentrated on in the past.

This conclusion has been made from the results of a number of exceptional patients that are fighting HIV with a wide range of natural antibodies.

Michel C Nussenzweig, lead researcher, Sherman Fairchild professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, said: "We wanted to try something different, so we tried to reproduce what's in the patient.

"And what's in the patient is many different antibodies that individually have limited neutralizing abilities but together are quite powerful. This should make people think about what an effective vaccine should look like."

The pack hunting antibodies have been described as acting "like piranhas".