Working Group Consultation: Alloimmunity as a Vaccine Approach Against HIV/AIDS: National Institutes of Health Meeting Report, May 24, 2012

Abstract Alloimmunization vaccine strategies propose to avoid the problem of the extreme antigenic variability of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by instead focusing on the cellular antigens incorporated into HIV virions as they bud from infected cells. This report summarizes a Consultation meeting convened by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health on May 24, 2012. The objectives of the meeting were to (1) reach a consensus on the essential questions surrounding alloimmunization as a strategy for vaccine design against HIV, and (2) determine the experimental elements that might be needed for addressing these questions in an optimized pilot framework nonhuman primate (NHP) protocol for allogeneic immunization. The Consultation revisited the rationale and concerns of vaccination to induce allogeneic immunity, one of the most potent natural immune responses. The panelists' consensus was that a carefully designed skin graft transplant pilot experiment, in m...