Vir Biotechnology, Inc., a clinical-stage immunology company focused on treating and preventing serious infectious diseases, announced that the first patient was dosed in late December 2020 in a Phase 1 clinical trial of VIR-1111, an investigational human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) T cell vaccine. An artist’s rendition of HIV (foreground). The knobs (purple) covering the virus are sugar-protein molecules, including gp120, that shield the rest of the virus (pink). Image/National Cancer Institute VIR-1111 is a proof-of-concept vaccine designed to test the hypothesis that this new approach can elicit potentially protective immune responses that differ from other HIV vaccines. VIR-1111 is uniquely designed to elicit abundant and durable CD4 and CD8 T cells that are programmed to attack virus-infected cells. This trial is being conducted in collaboration with Oregon Health & Science University’s (OHSU) Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.