ABSTRACT
HIV-1, first recognized in 1983, now scourges the world as the fourth leading cause of death. Most HIV-1 infections strike sexually active young adults, depleting both developed and developing countries of innovators, breadwinners, and parents. Why has this emergent epidemic so devastated populations, and why, with the tools of modern biology, has it been so hard to develop a vaccine. Within 4 years of the ability to culture polio virus, the Salk vaccine was reaching the public. We have been able to grow HIV-1 and have known the complete sequence of its genome for 15 years, yet are still without a vaccine. What is it about this virus that so challenges our ability to imprint an immune system with a protective memory response?
