PLoS Medicine: AIDS Vaccine for Asia Network (AVAN): Expanding the Regional Role in Developing HIV Vaccines

AIDS Vaccine for Asia Network (AVAN): Expanding the Regional Role in Developing HIV Vaccines
Yiming Shao and colleagues describe the work of AVAN, the AIDS Vaccine for Asia Network, which aims to strengthen its regional efforts in finding an AIDS vaccine.


Stephen J. Kent1, David A. Cooper2, Mean Chhi Vun3, Yiming Shao4*, Linqi Zhang5, Nirmal Ganguly6, Budiman Bela7, Hiko Tamashiro8, Rossana Ditangco9, Supachai Rerks-Ngarm10, Punnee Pitisuttithum11, Nguyen Van Kinh12, Alan Bernstein13, Saladin Osmanov14, for the AIDS Vaccine for Asia Network investigators and supporters

1 University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia, 2 University of New South Wales, Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia, 3 National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STIs (NCHADS), Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 4 State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, Beijing, China, 5 Tsinghua University, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China, 6 Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, India, 7 University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia, 8 Hokkaido University, Hokkaido, Japan, 9 Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Manila, Philippines, 10 Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health, Bangkok, Thailand, 11 Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, 12 National Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (NIITD), Hanoi, Viet Nam, 13 Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, New York, New York, United States of America, 14 World Health Organization/Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, Geneva, Switzerland

Citation: Kent SJ, Cooper DA, Chhi Vun M, Shao Y, Zhang L, et al. (2010) AIDS Vaccine for Asia Network (AVAN): Expanding the Regional Role in Developing HIV Vaccines. PLoS Med 7(9): e1000331. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000331


Published: September 21, 2010

Copyright: © 2010 Kent et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: No specific funding was received for this article.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Abbreviations: ADCC, antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity; AVAN, AIDS Vaccine for Asia Network; BCG, Mycobacterium bovis/Bacillus Calmette-Guérin; CAVD, Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery; CAVI, Chinese AIDS Vaccine Initiative; CDC, Center for Disease Control and Prevention; CRF, circulating recombinant form; DoD, Department of Defense; the Enterprise, Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise; EU, European Union; GMP, good manufacturing practice; IAVI, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative; IDU, injecting drug user; MHRP, US Military HIV Research Program; MSM, men who have sex with men; MVA, modified vaccinia Ankara; NIH, National Institutes of Health; UNAIDS, World Health Organization (WHO)/Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

* E-mail: yshao08@gmail.com

Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Summary Points
The HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to spread and an AIDS vaccine is urgently needed.
Regional alliances and international collaborations can foster the development and evaluation of the next generation of AIDS vaccine candidates.
The importance of coordinating and harmonizing efforts across regional alliances has become abundantly clear.

We recently formed the AIDS Vaccine for Asia Network (AVAN) to help facilitate the development of a regional AIDS vaccine strategy that accelerates research and development of an AIDS vaccine through government advocacy, improved coordination, and harmonization of research; develops clinical trial and manufacturing capacity; supports ethical and regulatory frameworks; and ensures community participation.
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PLoS Medicine: AIDS Vaccine for Asia Network (AVAN): Expanding the Regional Role in Developing HIV Vaccines