Cel-Sci Corp. and Alpha 1 Biomedicals Inc. announced that theirputative AIDS vaccine, HGP-30, proved safe in U.S. Phase Iclinical trials on 16 healthy volunteers.

Moreover, "some individuals showed T cell responses, includingthe ability to elicit cytotoxic killer T cells that are thought to beessential in the elimination of AIDS infected cells," said AllanGoldstein, professor and chairman of the department ofbiochemistry and molecular biology at the George WashingtonUniversity Medical Center and a founder of Alpha-1Biomedicals.

These results were reported in August at the InternationalConference on Advances in AIDS Vaccine Development,sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and InfectiousDiseases (NIAID), and also published in the journal AIDSResearch and Human Retroviruses. The data "support andextend the results obtained in an earlier trial of HGP-30conducted at St. Stephen's Hospital in London," the companiessaid.

HGP-30 is a synthetic peptide version of the virus' p17 coreprotein. Viral Technologies Inc. of Bethesda, Md., a jointventure of Cel-Sci (NASDAQ:CELI) of Alexandria, Va., and Alpha1 Biomedicals (NASDAQ:ALBM) of Bethesda, owns the patent onthe compound.-- Jennifer Van Brunt120392HGP-30

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