It is important to emphasise that the MHC system of self-recognition proteins is the most variable in the body, and between species, and there is no guarantee that what works in rhesus monkeys will work in people: previous vaccines such as the one used in the STEP Study looked promising in animal studies but failed to work in humans. One thing that has tripped up HIV vaccine research is that HIV in the field is much more variable than the experimental viruses used in lab research, although eight of the vaccinated monkeys were challenged with a significantly different strain of SIV and were protected against that too.
This research is not only of use to HIV vaccine research. The strategy of vaccine-induced immune tolerance, rather than immune activation, is so new that, the researchers say, “it opens up a vast array of research on the suppressive arm of the immune system and its potential manipulation in human and veterinary medicine.”