Subject: Viral Technologies Vaccine For AIDS Gets Human Test
Date: Published: 2/21/91 (37 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology:
    Viral Technologies Vaccine
    For AIDS Gets Human Test

    SAN FRANCISCO -- A potential AIDS vaccine made its U. S. 
 debut when it was injected into a human volunteer at San
 Francisco General Hospital.
    Though this was the first test of the HGP-30 vaccine in
 the U. S., it has been tested on volunteers in Britain since
 May 1989.  Preliminary results on four of 18 healthy
 volunteers show the vaccine is safe, producing T cells that
 could kill infected cells before they contaminate the rest of
 the body, said Geert Kersten, vice president of Viral
 Technologies Inc., a Washington concern that is developing
 the drug.
    Several other potential AIDS vaccines have been
 administered to human volunteers.  Mr. Kersten said HGP-30 is
 the first that is considered a core vaccine that attacks
 individual infected cells.
    The other vaccines, he said, attack the AIDS virus, but
 they are potentially less effective because the virus mutates
 too much to be killed by a single drug.  The only effective
 way to kill the virus, Mr. Kersten added, is to destroy cells
 that spread it.  The HGP-30 vaccine is designed to produce
 more of the body's T cells that are normally produced to
 attack viruses, he said.
    The injection at San Francisco General Hospital began a
 scheduled yearlong trial of the drug in the U. S. 

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