The scientists of ASU and Vector Scientific Center have made the first move towards HIV vaccine creation

The prestigious scientific journal Acta Naturae, which is listed among periodicals of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and dedicated to the issues of molecular biology, biochemistry, molecular genetics and biological medicine, has published the review prepared by the scientists of ASU Faculty of Chemistry and Federal Scientific Center for Virology and Biotechnology “Vector”.

The topic of the review is “Broadly neutralizing antibodies against human immunodeficiency virus”. Despite the fact that there are currently only few groups of scientists in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Novosibirsk working on that question, this is the first review article on the broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1 published by Russian scientists. Young scientists of ASU Faculty of Chemistry play an important role in the Novosibirsk team.

“We cooperate with the Faculty of Chemistry in the framework of ASU Department in the Federal Scientific Center for Virology and Biotechnology “Vector”. The Faculty of Chemistry students and graduates do almost all experiments. Many years of work on CombiHIVvac candidate vaccine that has been conducted at the Department of Bioengineering of “Vector” Scientific Center demonstrate the authors’ competence, and this is why Acta Naturae journal has published our review almost immediately,” noted the head of the Laboratory for Immunochemistry of the Department of Bioengineering of the Scientific Center “Vector”, Assistant Professor of ASU Department of Organic Chemistry, Candidate of Biology Dmitry N. Sherbakov. “Currently we study the broadly neutralizing antibodies with the phage display method and have already achieved some interesting results. In particular, we have obtained peptide-simulators that can also be called “parts” of the future HIV vaccine. Moreover, our team is working on creation of new experimental immunogen, which is a prototype of the future vaccine, in the framework of Russian Science Foundation project.”

Dmitry N. Sherbakov also explained that peptide-simulators obtained by Altai and Novosibirsk scientists enter into the composition of vaccine prototype – experimental immunogen. Now the scientists observe and study how animals’ immune system responds to experimental molecules.

“If we get good results, it will certainly be a breakthrough,” summarized Dmitry N. Sherbakov.