DALLAS—
27 year old William Ashworth heard about the HIV vaccine study and signed up right away.William hopes his trips to the HIV-AIDS Research Unit at UT Southwestern will someday save lives.
"Basically," Williams said. "It's a cause that I believe in and it seemed like an appropriate way for me to be able to help out with it."
William is one of 1,350 non-HIV infected volunteers who will be injected with a series of three vaccines and then a booster shot.
The vaccine will be a combination of two drugs--or a placebo.
Dr. Mamta Jain is the director of the UT Southwestern HIV-AIDS Research Unit and the lead investigator of the HIV vaccine trial.
She said the goal is to see if 'man made' proteins that mimic the HIV virus will coax the body into making antibodies--and if they see the same type of protein--eradicate it.
"We don't think this is going to be the big vaccine that prevents HIV," Dr. Jain said. "But we know that whatever information we learn from this vaccine will help us develop a better vaccine in the future."
High risk volunteers like William will be monitored for up to three years.
Dr. Jain said the volunteers are advised about risk reduction--but when you consider AIDS in the 4th leading cause of death worldwide--there must be a better way.
"Unfortunately treating every case of HIV isn't going to do it," Dr. Jain said. "We just don't have the resources, especially in a lot of the third world countries to do that and so we need something like a vaccine that could prevent HIV."
William knows the study is one small step in the direction of a much larger goal.
"Just the fact of being a part of them learning what they can from this so that in the future they'll know more and maybe be successful at some point is a real fulfillment for me."
And for the almost 150 people in the U.S. who became infected today with HIV.
"The more research there is," Williams said. "The more likely we are to find a solution to the problem."
