Major drug company GlaxoSmithKline is hoping to develop an experimental AIDS vaccine by "piggy-backing" on a shot against measles.
A collaboration between Europe's biggest drug maker and France's Institut Pasteur plans to make the vaccine by fusing genes from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) onto an existing vaccine for the childhood disease.
GSK Biologicals, Glaxo's vaccines unit, will apparently license the measles vaccine vector, or carrier, technology from Institut Pasteur, and researchers from both groups will jointly develop the new vaccine.
This new project is the latest in a range of novel approaches to fighting HIV, which has to date killed more than 3.1 million people this year alone.
Many scientists believe a vaccine is the best hope for ending the epidemic, but the virus has proved far more difficult for vaccine developers to outwit than anyone anticipated when the first case of HIV/AIDS was reported in 1981.
Glaxo believes adapting a measles shot is a promising approach, since the vaccine against this old disease is known to give very long-lasting immunity.
The hope is that using it as a carrier to deliver HIV proteins will produce a similarly potent and long-lasting vaccine to prevent AIDS.
The are however no guarantees of success, and the project will take many years of research before scientists know whether they can manufacture a safe and effective therapy.
The research will be carried out under a public-private collaboration, and the initial project will be supported by a grant of 5.5 million euros from the European Union.
There will be four research centres involved in France, Belgium and Britain, and the partners hope to start clinical studies in about three years.
The development of public-private partnerships is being increasingly used to tackle diseases, including malaria and tuberculosis, that occur primarily in poor countries where Western pharmaceutical companies stand little chance of making money.