Jennifer Matthews: For more than 20 years, it's been a struggle for AIDS researchers like Doctor Julie McElrath
Dr. McElrath: HIV is tricky. It is definitely eluding us.
Jennifer Matthews: Since the mid-80s, scientists have been trying to produce an AIDS vaccine. There have been countless studies that have enrolled people like Wendy Hilliker.
Wendy Hilliker: It was important for me because I had seen people that I cared about, people that I'd worked with, succumb to AIDS.
Jennifer Matthews: The virus has a crafty ability to mutate and evade drugs designed to fight it. But some promising findings from yet another vaccine offer new hope.
Dr. McElrath: For now, we think it's the best thing we've seen yet, ever, and that it really deserves full-scale testing, and we hope that the data will be good.
Jennifer Matthews: A large study has just started in the U.S. and other countries to test a vaccine that sends synthetically produced HIV genes into the body. That tricks the body into producing cells that can kill the virus.
Dr. McElrath: The vaccine itself is not HIV. It's not going to give you HIV infection, but it's going to allow the body to recognize pieces of HIV and to make an immune response.
Jennifer Matthews: As the research moves forward, scientists believe they're getting closer to their goal. So far, the vaccine has produced the strongest T-cell immune response against the AIDS virus ever. This is Jennifer Matthews reporting.
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