Introduction: The development of an effective vaccine against HIV-1 has been challenging but recent advances in both the HIV prevention landscape and the partial efficacy of the recent RV144 vaccine efficacy trial in Thailand provide hope for an improved arsenal of approaches to prevent HIV-1 transmission.
Areas covered: This review describes recent advances in HIV-1 prevention such as circumcision, microbicides and pre-exposure prophylaxis with antiretroviral therapy, but focuses mainly on the current state of HIV-1 vaccine development in the post-RV144 era.
Expert opinion: The field of HIV-1 vaccine development has been plagued by the unprecedented challenges involved with designing a vaccine effective in preventing transmission of a retrovirus, due in part to sequence diversity, retroviral integration into host chromosomes, establishment of reservoir sites and glycosylation shielding of the HIV-1 envelope. The partial efficacy of the recent RV144 vaccine trial in Thailand may allow for better understanding of immune correlates of infection risk, which could enable iterative improvements to vaccine regimens in the development pipeline. In parallel, a number of promising vaccine strategies incorporating viral vectors, novel immunogens, delivery systems and adjuvants are advancing in clinical development. Vaccine development must occur in parallel with continued advances in HIV-1 prevention.