CAVD Reports Progress Toward AIDS Vaccine Development

Work by the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD), an international research network created in 2006 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to accelerate development of an AIDS vaccine, has been highlighted in a first-ever cumulative review. The report, available at www.cavd.org, provides an overview of the scientific and operational (legal and business) progress made by the CAVD network, which now comprises 400 investigators in 21 countries, over the past two and a half years. Total funding for the CAVD now exceeds US$327 million, representing the majority of the Foundation’s support for AIDS vaccine research and development.

The CAVD supports the goals of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, as described in its Scientific Strategic Plan, which was first proposed in 2003 by a number of HIV researchers and policymakers as a way to promote multidisciplinary and collaborative approaches to generating and testing vaccine candidates. When it was created, the CAVD model included 16 funded institutions but it has since grown to include 19 primary grantees that all work with a number of other collaborating institutions around the world. Additionally, two grantees funded through the Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges in Global Health program are also collaborating with the CAVD. —Regina McEnery