Could this vaccine trial mean a future without HIV?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Short Wave – "Could this vaccine trial mean a future without HIV?"

Date: February 16, 2026
Host: Nate Rodd (filling in for Emily Kwong & Regina Barber)
Guest: Ari Daniel (Freelance Science Reporter), Prof. Penny Moore, Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker, Nunu Mkize, Amelia Nfiki, and Nandeep Hamongo

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Overview

This episode dissects the remarkable and often fraught journey behind a major HIV vaccine trial in South Africa. It covers the two-decade-long research foundation, setbacks due to U.S. foreign aid freezes, and the perseverance of local scientists and communities in moving HIV research forward, even with drastically reduced funding. The episode highlights the new vaccine's scientific roots, the pivotal role of South African women, and what a real-world end to HIV could look like.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Research Foundation: Two Decades of Samples

• Setting the Scene: Ari Daniel visits the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, South Africa, where virologist Penny Moore and her team have collected blood samples from the same group of 117 South African women for 20 years.
  • [01:06] Penny Moore: "These are the freezers that contain samples that are the basis of everything we do in the lab. Our freezers are named after the seven dwarfs."
  • [01:55] Nate: "You mean they collected blood from the same group of women for 20 years?"
  • [02:02] Penny Moore: "They live in communities most ravaged by HIV. They donate their samples because they hope to see an end to an epidemic that is really, really real for them."
• These samples have helped map HIV's evolution and response, aiding not only HIV but other diseases like COVID-19 and cancer.

Near-Derailment: The U.S. Aid Freeze

• Zanzibar Proposal Meeting: Researchers gathered in Zanzibar, energized by a $45 million USAID grant to develop a vaccine tailored for diverse African communities.
  • [06:15] Ari: "Penny and her colleagues had gotten a $45 million grant from USAID... The goal was to get teams across the continent to collaborate."
• Funding Crisis: News breaks at the meeting that President Trump’s 2020 executive order freezes most foreign aid, including their grant.
  • [07:06] Penny Moore: "I remember at the end of the meeting, USAID colleagues saying to me, I'm not sure if I'll see you again. I completely underestimated how much it would gut the program."
  • [07:38] Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker: "When the funding collapsed, I cycled through the stages of grief… Angry because we'd worked damn hard…"

Recovery and Adaptation: Scaling Down, Not Stopping

• Desperate Measures: The team quickly sought new funding and eventually secured $2.2 million from the South African Medical Research Council and Gates Foundation.
  • [08:08] Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker: "This matters too much to not finish the work. We brought out the begging bowl."
• New Scope: The trial shrinks to a South Africa-only pilot, sacrificing the chance to study virus variants across Africa.
  • [08:54] Penny Moore: "It's a bare bones version. We will still get the answer, but it's going to cost us time, years. Which is not trivial because people are getting infected with this virus constantly."

The Science: Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies

• Breakthrough: Scientists found that some of the 117 women developed rare "broadly neutralizing antibodies" (bNAbs) capable of stopping nearly any strain of HIV worldwide.
  • [09:50] Penny Moore: "A broadly neutralizing antibody could stop my virus and could stop your virus and could stop an HIV virus from any other person. In many cases, up to 90% of global viruses could be stopped by one antibody."
  • [10:03] Nate (jokingly): "So this is like a super antibody! Does it wear a cape?"
• The Goal: Develop a vaccine that educates the immune system to produce these bNAbs early, offering protection before HIV infection.

The Community: Local Leadership, Local Hope

• Community Engagement: In Cape Town, community liaison officer Amelia Nfiki introduces the vaccine trial to 20 local women, including 25-year-old Nandeep Hamongo, who describes the dire need for HIV prevention.
  • [11:51] Nandeep Hamongo: "Most of us are scared of getting HIV, which is why I’d happily be involved in the research… I’m over the moon, man. I’m over the moon. Yes."
  • [12:08] Nandeep Hamongo on a world without HIV: "Living free? Yeah."
• Empowerment: The pride is palpable among both researchers and participants, underscoring local agency and ambition.
  • [11:22] Amelia Nfiki: "This is a great opportunity for South Africa to prove that we can do things in South Africa, for South Africa, with South African financing."

The Present and Looking Ahead

• Trial Status: The first shots went into arms in January, with the study rolling out over the coming months.
  • [12:26] Ari Daniel: "It already started, Nate, in January, and it's going to continue for some months."
• A World Without HIV: The optimism from those involved is met with measured scientific caution but a sense of unprecedented progress.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [02:34] Penny Moore: "The amount we have learned from these freezers, it's just astonishing."
• [03:00] Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker (on setback): "In many ways, we’ve kind of had our legs cut off even as we're beginning to run the sprint."
• [07:54] Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker: "Angry because we'd worked damn hard. We'd won this grant, and we were doing what we said we would do."
• [08:54] Penny Moore: "It's a bare bones version. We will still get the answer, but it's going to cost us time, years. Which is not trivial because people are getting infected with this virus constantly."
• [09:50] Penny Moore: "A broadly neutralizing antibody could stop an HIV virus from any other person. And in many cases, up to 90% of global viruses could be stopped by one antibody."
• [11:51] Nandeep Hamongo: "Most of us are scared of getting HIV, which is why I’d happily be involved in the research… I’m over the moon, man. I’m over the moon. Yes."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:00-02:30] — Why the blood samples from South African women matter
• [04:46-06:36] — The Zanzibar "high-point" meeting and research momentum
• [07:04-08:14] — U.S. foreign aid freeze and the program's near collapse
• [08:30-09:05] — Scaling back ambitions and the implications
• [09:30-10:51] — Discovery and implications of broadly neutralizing antibodies
• [10:56-12:26] — Launching the vaccine trial in South African communities
• [12:26-12:37] — Where the trial stands and next steps

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Conclusion

This episode of Short Wave offers a human-centered, hopeful look at the ongoing fight for an HIV vaccine in Africa. Despite political, financial, and scientific obstacles, South African researchers and communities remain undeterred, forging ahead with less funding but undiminished resolve. The trial, now underway, is a vital step on the road to ending HIV—and a testament to local leadership and scientific perseverance.

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Transcript

[A]

This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's Flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn [e-mail]. you're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

[B]

Hey, shortwavers. Science correspondent Nate Rodd here filling in for Emily and Regina. Today we're gonna talk about a global disease that's long hammered Sub Saharan Africa. Particularly hard, hiv.

[C]

Specifically, we're gonna talk about a vaccine to fight hiv.

[B]

So, Ari Daniel, for those who don't recognize your dulcet tones, is a freelance science reporter. And Ari, I hear there's a pretty remarkable backstory to this vaccine we're gonna talk about.

[C]

That is correct.

[B]

Okay, so where do you wanna start?

[C]

All right, right here, Nate. Inside a lab at the National Institute for Communic in Johannesburg, South Africa. It's arrayed with, if you can picture it, half a dozen large green and white freezers.

[D]

These are the freezers that contain samples that are the basis of everything we do in the lab.

[C]

This is Penny Moore. She's a virologist at the University of Witwaterstrand.

[D]

Our freezers are named after the seven dwarfs.

[B]

I've always felt a strong affinity for Sleepy.

[D]

So you have Happy and Grumpy. And every freezer in the lab is named after Sleepy Somebody.

[C]

So Penny cracks open the lid of Bashful and pulls out a tower of frosty tubes.

[D]

It's heavy and hard for me to lift. So this is blood and cells.

[C]

These, Nate, are all the samples that have been donated to Penny and her team over and over again for two decades by the same group of 117 South African women.

[B]

Whoa. So just to be clear, Ari, you mean they collected blood from the same group of women for 20 years?

[C]

That's right.

[B]

Who are these women?

[D]

They live in the communities that are most ravaged by hiv. And they donate their samples because they hope to see an end to an epidemic that is really, really real for them.

[C]

These samples have helped Penny and her team piece together a detailed portrait of the virus over the years. How it infects, how it hides, and how much it changes across declines. Different parts of the world and even within a single individual. This research has also helped fight other diseases, including COVID 19, RSV and cancer.

[D]

The amount we have learned from these freezes, it's just astonishing.

[C]

And yet, despite all that, Nate, Penny actually spent much of last year worrying that it might all amount to nothing.

[B]

Why?

[C]

Well, because just when she and her colleagues were on the brink of an innovative HIV vaccine trial across Africa, the bottom dropped out. Linda Gail Becker directs the Desmond Tutu Health foundation in South Africa.

[D]

In many ways, we've kind of had our legs cut off even as we're beginning to run the sprint.

[B]

That's a vivid description.

[C]

But the team, they steeled their resolve. They knew the science was sound and the need was urgent. They insisted on finding a way forward.

[D]

Wow.

[B]

Okay. So today on the show, the Pan Africa HIV vaccine trial that was almost over before it even started. You're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from npr.

[E]

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[B]

Ari, where do we pick up this story?

[C]

Well, to explain what was going on, we have to kind of rewind to about a year ago in early 2020, to a meeting that was held in.

[D]

Zanzibar, the famous Zanzibar trip.

[B]

Zanzibar. Zanzibar. Zanzibar is very far. You can't get there in a car. It's too far to Zanzibar. I've actually been to Zanzibar, Ari, and it is stunningly.

[C]

Have you?

[B]

I have, yes.

[C]

Well, so you know, it's a tropical archipelago off the east coast of Africa. So as you so kindly pointed out with your lyrics, very far. And when Penny was there with her hundred or so colleagues for that meeting, she says it was just craz hot.

[D]

One of those places where you just consider standing up and you break out in a sweat.

[C]

The gathering took place in a hotel perched on the edge of a brilliant blue ocean. There were researchers and clinicians from across Africa, and then there were the International scientific advisors.

[D]

They grilled us to within an inch of our lives to make sure that we were doing the very best cutting edge science we could do with the amount of money we had.

[B]

What money are we talking about here, Ari? Like how much?

[C]

Penny and her colleagues had gotten a $45 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development, or usaid, to create a state of the art vaccine to prevent hiv. The goal was to get teams across the continent to collaborate on developing something that would work in different African communities.

[B]

Okay, so a vaccine that would work across different parts of the continent because hiv, as you pointed out, the virus is different from country to country.

[C]

Exactly. And within a country and even between individuals. So at this meeting in Zanzibar, there was a real feeling of momentum. Nunu Mkize is a colleague of Penny's and a senior medical scientist.

[D]

The excitement was through the roof.

[B]

We're at the beginning of something big.

[C]

But just as that meeting was about to wrap up, Penny says the mood.

[D]

Darkened from the number of Americans, particularly checking their phones all of a sudden and talking to one another in little huddles.

[B]

I got a feeling I know where this is going.

[C]

Yep. As you may recall, Nate, President Trump, who'd just been inaugurated at that point, had signed an executive order freezing most foreign aid.

[B]

Wow. And I'm assuming that included this grant.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

I remember at the end of the meeting, USAID colleagues saying to me, I'm not sure if I'll see you again. I. I completely underestimated how much it would gut the program.

[C]

But Penny and her colleagues soon found out. After returning to Johannesburg, she says the official stop work orders arrived from washing weeks before the trial was to begin. Everything came to a sudden halt. All the money was gone. And remember Linda Gale Becker from the top of the episode?

[B]

Yeah. She was the one that said that their legs had been cut off before they started sprinting.

[C]

Right? That's the one. She says when the funding collapsed, she cycled through the stages of grief.

[B]

I bet. I mean, after decades of work by her and her colleagues collecting blood samples.

[D]

And all that work, there's disbelief in the first instance. Then there is emotion that basically is.

[B]

Angry because we'd work dam hard.

[D]

We'd won this grant, and we were doing what we had said we would do.

[C]

But soon this team of researchers decided that they needed to find a different way forward.

[D]

This matters too much to not finish the work. We brought out the begging bowl.

[C]

A period of frantic grant writing began, and finally they got funding from the South African Medical Research Council and The Gates Foundation.

[B]

Okay, well, that's good. So were they able to get another $45 million?

[C]

No, they couldn't raise that much, but they did get about 2.2 million.

[B]

Okay, that's still money, but a lot less money. Did they have to scale back their ambitions then?

[C]

Of course, the new grant was focused inside South Africa only. And that meant that they had to sacrifice studying how the vaccine might work against different versions of the virus within different African populations. And here's Penny Moore again.

[D]

It's a bare bones version. We will still get the answer, but it's going to cost us time, years. Which is not trivial because people are getting infected with this virus constantly.

[C]

Despite having to reduce the scope of the grant, though, Penny told me that HIV vaccine research is farther along than it's ever been.

[B]

Ooh, I hear a door. Are we going back into that noisy seven door freezer room room?

[C]

You know, it. It contains all those samples that those 117 women have donated over the years.

[D]

These samples have taught us everything we.

[C]

Know about hiv, including why the virus is so skilled at evading our body's defenses. But remarkably, in the blood of a few of these women, something pretty special surfaced after they became infected with hiv. Penny tells me in her office, it's something called a broadly neutralizing antibody.

[D]

A broadly neutralizing antibody could stop my virus and could stop your virus and could stop an HIV virus from any other person. And in many cases, up to 90% of global viruses could be stopped by one antibody.

[B]

Okay, so this is like a super antibody. Does it wear a cape?

[C]

Not exactly, but you're on the right track, Nate, because compared to regular antibodies, these guys are weird looking. Some have really long arms, some have super short arms. And this oddness gives them a way of dealing with HIV's defenses. But when these rare antibodies appear naturally in someone's body, they usually emerge too late to help that person living with hiv.

[B]

Okay, so they usually emerge too late, but is there a way for the researchers to somehow, like, coax the human immune system, let's say to like, produce these antibodies before they become infected with hiv? So they have some defenses?

[C]

Bingo. That is the whole point of this vaccine trial, to figure out how to do that more eas.

[B]

Okay, cool. So has it started? Like, is the new vaccine trial underway?

[C]

Finally, after nearly a year of delays, I head to the outskirts of Cape Town, where a large brick building rises above Felipe Village, this impoverished township where HIV is rampant. And a few levels up, I spot Amelia Nfiki, the community liaison officer for the vaccine trial. This is a great opportunity for South.

[D]

Africa to prove that we can do.

[B]

Things in South Africa.

[D]

For South Africa, with South African financing.

[C]

Amelia makes her way to a room where 20 or so young women are gathered to hear about participating in the trial HIV vaccine.

[B]

Who are these 20 some young women, Ari?

[C]

Well, all these women are from the community, Nate, including Nandeep Hamongo. She's 25 years old and she tells me that her community struggles with rape, sex, traded for favors, unplanned pregnancies.

[D]

Most of us are scared of getting.

[C]

Hiv, which is why she'd happily be involved in the research.

[D]

I'm over the moon, man. I'm over the moon. Yes.

[B]

Oh, that's awesome.

[C]

Because she's proud to be making a difference. Yes.

[D]

A big one. A big difference.

[C]

I ask, if this team of researchers is able to find a vaccine, what would a world without HIV be like?

[D]

Living free? Yeah.

[B]

Do we have a sense, Ari, of when the first shots of this new vaccine will start going into people's arms?

[C]

It already started, Nate, in January, and it's going to continue for some months.

[B]

Wow. I'm excited to hear how this goes. Thank you so much, Ari, for bringing us this story.

[C]

Of course, Nate. Thanks for having me.

[B]

Ari Daniel is a freelance science reporter and short waivers. If you like this episode, follow us on the NPR app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, check out our episodes on when youn Brain is Fully Developed and Kratom. Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center. Thank you, Pulitzer Center. The Gates foundation is a financial supporter of npr. Thanks for listening to shortwave from npr. See you next time.

[E]

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[A]

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