Anti-HIV antibodies ineffectiveness explained

Scientists claim to have discovered the reasons for anti-HIV antibodies being ineffective at blocking the virus.

A working vaccine against HIV is still to be found, despite a global search for the past quarter of a century.

Experts at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) believe that this is partly down to the body's natural HIV antibodies not being long enough to neutralise the targeted viruses.

Pamela Bjorkman, the Max Delbrück professor of biology at Caltech, wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "This study helps to clarify the obstacles that antibodies face in blocking infection and will hopefully shed more light on why developing an effective vaccine for HIV has proven so elusive."

Y-shaped antibodies have two arms that are most effective at neutralising viruses, but these often do not stretch far enough to bind themselves to the protein spikes that cover the surface of the HIV virus.

HIV viruses have fewer than 15 spikes studding them, in comparison to a similar sized influenza virus, which has around 450 spikes, making it easier to target for antibodies.

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