Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have made what could be a groundbreaking finding in the fight against HIV.

While observing the immune response of an HIV-infected patient, researchers discovered a new antibody that targets a weak spot in the virus and stops it from binding with healthy cells. If scientists can figure out how to trigger the antibody to be produced in uninfected patients, a preventative vaccine could be developed, making this discovery a significant finding in the efforts to eradicate HIV and AIDS.

In the recent study, an anonymous HIV-positive patient developed rare, neutralizing antibodies against HIV that attacked the fusion peptide, a link of amino acids, which is the part of the virus that helps it bind to and infect a cell. Scientists are now hypothesizing that these antibodies could be the missing link in developing a successful HIV vaccine.

The discovery of these never-before-seen antibodies is significant and "unexpected because viruses often try to mask such key components of their cell entry machinery from antibody attack," the authors wrote in the journal Science.

Once the virus has invaded the white blood cells, it becomes invisible to the immune system. And because HIV is able is able to change its proteins, rapidly replicate itself and enter into an infected person's DNA, targeting the virus has been extremely difficult.

Thus, scientists have focused their efforts mostly on prevention rather than finding a cure. Previous efforts have been made to develop long-acting antibody injections that would prevent an individual from being infected for a certain amount of time.

But the discovery of the new antibody, named VRC34.01 by scientists, is promising since it binds to a potentially weak portion of HIV's makeup and prevents it from attaching to white blood cells. Because the fusion peptide of HIV is only eight amino acids in length, it is short in comparison to those of other viruses, and an evolutionary change in the amino acid structure would be unlikely.

If scientists can make a vaccine triggering the production of the VRC34.01 antibody, it could prevent the virus from infecting healthy cells altogether. Upon this discovery, scientists froze the VRC34.01 antibody as it was attaching to the virus and found that the antibody bound to key surface proteins, preventing it from attacking white blood cells.

After analyzing the blood of 24 other HIV patients to see if a similar antibody was released, scientists found those patients also developed antibodies that attacked the same part of the virus, the fusion peptide. However, the antibodies released by the additional patients did not completely shut down the virus like VRC34.01.

Scientists will need to find a way to stimulate VRC34.01 production in patients who do not naturally release the antibody to develop a vaccine. Injecting the antibody itself would be a short-term solution for prevention, but an antibody response must be elicited in each patient in order for the body to protect against HIV long term. This means scientists will need to conduct lengthy animal trials before the vaccine is even available for human testing, which could take many years.

The NIH is also continuing to explore other HIV vaccine trials, including another promising one that will soon begin a large-scale clinical trial in South Africa.

It is important to note the potential vaccine will only be effective in those not yet infected with HIV. Scientists have made breakthroughs in understanding and preventing the virus in the past, but the ability of HIV to mutate its proteins over time makes it difficult for scientists to find a lasting preventative and cure.

However, each breakthrough has helped turn HIV into a manageable disease for the 36.9 million people living with the virus today, a far cry from its perception in the 1980s as a death sentence.