Ari Daniel

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.

Here's Penny Moore again.

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.

You know it.

It contains all those samples that those 117 women have donated over the years.

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.

Does it wear a cape?

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.

Bingo.

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

So, has it started?

Like, is the new vaccine trial underway?

Finally, after nearly a year of delays.

I head to the outskirts of Cape Town, where a large brick building rises above Philippi Village, this impoverished township where HIV is rampant.