HIV vaccine soon a reality?

Virologist Klaus Überla and his team at FAU are developing new immunization strategies against HIV, building on decades of experience.

One in 1000 people is HIV positive in Germany. That means that the proportion of people infected with HIV in Germany is higher than ever before. Some people may find that surprising, after all people have been well educated about HIV and AIDS for decades now. Klaus Überla, Director of the Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology and Chair of Clinical and Molecular Virology names two main reasons for the rising numbers: “In the last 20 years we have developed very effective treatments. As a result, fewer people infected with HIV are dying than the number of people newly diagnosed. That of course leads to a rise in numbers.” In addition, Überla adds, roughly 10 percent of those affected are not aware of their condition, and risk infecting others. Nowadays, human immunodeficiency virus, HIV for short, can be treated well with a lifelong antiviral therapy. There is still no vaccine. Überla is one of the researchers who are trying to change that.

A vaccine against HIV?

For over thirty years, Überla has worked at developing vaccines against HIV and exploring why immunization strategies pursued to date have failed. “During our research, we have basically tried out all types of immunizations,” he explains. At the current time, he and his working group are conducting research into a passive immunization procedure. While active immunization procedures involve encouraging the organism of the vaccinated person to trigger an immune response, in other words to produce antibodies, through contact with an antigen, in the passive immunization procedure, antibodies are transferred directly. The vaccinated person is protected whenever the antibodies are present in their body. A promising development: “We know that there are antibodies which are effective against many different HIV variants at once,” explains Überla.

Preventing infection from the very first cell

The virology team at FAU is exploring whether passive immunization is capable of preventing infection of the very first cell. When the HIV virus infects a cell, it incorporates its viral genetic material into the cell’s genome. This ensures that the virus’ genome exists for as long as the cell lives. If the cell divides, the viral genome is transferred to both daughter cells. “If I don’t prevent the very first cell from being infected, I risk these latently infected cells activating the viral genome at some point in the future, thereby creating new virus variants. “We were able to show that the neutralizing antibodies that block the virus from entering the cell provide protection for the first cell. This is referred to as sterilizing immunity.”

In his work, Überla can rely on the research of his predecessor Harald von Hausen, the founding director of the Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology. He was the first to suspect that cervical cancer may be caused by human papillomaviruses, and conducted the first studies on this in Erlangen. The successful development of the HPV vaccine therefore has its origin in Erlangen, and zur Hausen was even awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in recognition of his groundbreaking work. “We are using the papillomavirus vaccines as particle-based vaccine platforms,” explains Überla. “Our aim is to attach the HIV envelope protein to the surface of the HPV particles. In this way we hope to use the highly immunogenic structure of HPV particles to improve the immune response to the HIV protein.” It will still take a while until a usable vaccine can be created, however. “It is a long-winded process,” explains the immunologist. “We are talking about development times of 20 to 30 years.”

Innovative approaches in research training group

Überla himself does not spend much time in the laboratory nowadays. Instead, he is in charge of a working group consisting of doctoral candidates, research associates and technical staff. He supports them with their research questions and helps to find the suitable experimental methods. He is also head of the research training group “Novel antiviral approaches from small molecules to immune intervention.” The aim of the research training group is to support a group of doctoral candidates working in a similar area, both with regard to content and the relevant skills. The doctoral candidates in this research training group focus on antiviral chemotherapy. They hope to discover medicines against certain viral or cellular structures and decode the mechanisms behind them. They also hope to develop new immunization strategies. “Sooner or later, a combination of these procedures will be introduced,” Überla suspects. “I’m excited to see which new approaches will arise from the research training group.”

studied medicine at FU Berlin and completed his doctoral degree there in 1991 with a thesis on using experimental immunotherapy to treat tumors. As a postdoctoral researcher, he went to Boston to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School. In 1993, he returned to Germany and established his own working group in the Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology in Erlangen, where he completed his habilitation in 1997. After professorships in Leipzig and Bochum, Überla was appointed Chair of Clinical and Molecular Virology at FAU in 2015, and is also the Director of the Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology at Uniklinikum Erlangen. Überla was a member of the Standing Committee of Vaccination (STIKO) from 2017 until 2024, and was recently appointed its chair. Since 2019, he has also been the First Vice Dean of the Faculty of Medicine.

Virology Contact

Author: Miriam Weigand

This article is part of the FAU magazine

Innovation, diversity and passion: Those are the three guiding principles of our FAU, as stated in our mission statement. At FAU, we live these guiding principles every day in all that we do – in research, in teaching and when it comes to sharing the knowledge created at our university with society.

This, the second issue of our FAU magazine, underlines all of the above: It shows researchers who tirelessly keep pushing the boundaries of what has been believed to be possible. It introduces students who work together to achieve outstanding results for their FAU, talks about teaching staff who pass on their knowledge with infectious enthusiasm and creativity. And it reports back on members of staff with foresight and a talent for getting to the crux of the matter who are dedicated to improving the (research) infrastructure at FAU as well as people in key positions who are there for their university and are committed to its research location.