Subject: Genentech, Chiron Report Advances In Research Toward an AIDS Vaccine 
Date: Published: 6/9/93 (56 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology & Medicine:
    Genentech, Chiron Report Advances
    In Research Toward an AIDS Vaccine
    ----
    By Marilyn Chase
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    BERLIN -- Vaccine researchers laboring for a decade to find a way
 to immunize people against the AIDS virus presented new steps toward
 their goal at the Ninth International Conference on AIDS.  
    Among the milestones:  two biotechnology companies demonstrated
 that immunizing healthy volunteers against one strain of the human
 immunodeficiency virus created antibodies in the blood that react
 against different strains too.
    This feat was shown by both Genentech Inc. of South San
 Francisco, Calif., and Chiron Corp. of Emeryville, Calif., using
 gene-spliced copies of the virus.
    Genentech's vaccine against an AIDS virus strain called MN,
 tested in 57 volunteers, sparked antibodies that neutralized the
 virus introduced into blood samples taken from people who had been
 injected with the vaccine.  The antibodies neutralized not just MN
 but also a second strain known as SF2.  Also, the vaccine had no
 adverse effects, said Robert Belshe, a researcher at St. Louis
 University.
    Similarly, Chiron's vaccine, which was made from a piece of the
 SF2 virus strain, elicited antibodies that neutralized not only SF2,
 but also a French strain known as LAI, said James Kahn, a researcher
 at the University of California and San Francisco General Hospital.
    Further, Dr. Kahn said the antibodies from volunteers might later
 be infused into infected people, as an experiment in "passive
 immunization" -- a sort of immune-booster for people who already
 have the virus.
    Both the Genentech and Chiron teams conceded the tests fell well
 short of their hopes.  Genentech's vaccine didn't produce as high a
 level of antibodies as hoped.  Chiron's vaccine, for its part,
 provoked severe redness and swelling at the injection site in some
 volunteers' arms.
    The vaccine reports, while far from perfect, are extremely
 important in view of the resolve by federal officials to start
 planning now for tests in the U. S. of how well the vaccine actually
 prevents people from getting infected.  World health officials also
 are taking initial steps toward such moves in Africa, Asia and South
 America.
    The Genentech and Chiron vaccines, while still in development,
 are expected to be part of such a trial.  But researchers caution
 that any vaccine won't be commercially available for years and even
 then will be far from perfect.

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