( TIME.com ) -- Researchers report a breakthrough in generating powerful antibodies that can neutralize HIV . An HIV infection is really an intensive molecular arms race launched from the minute the virus infects a new host . AIDS progresses not because the body is n't capable of fighting off HIV -- it is . But the immune defenses eventually succumb to the virus in the final standoff . Now researchers led by Barton Haynes , director of the Duke University Human Vaccine Institute at Duke University School of Medicine , believe they have found a way to tip the odds in the immune system 's favor . From the moment of infection , the immune system goes on alert and immediately generates antibodies designed to attach to and destroy HIV . And for the first few weeks , these antibodies are successful , eliminating all but a few viruses that remain hidden away from the body 's surveillance systems . These viral stalwarts then mutate to escape detection and start to flourish , expanding until new antibodies are generated to dispatch them . That launches another wave of viral destruction that pushes HIV to mutate yet again , prompting another immune attack , and so on , until eventually the body is n't able to keep up with the virus and pushes out poor , or no more additional antibodies that can neutralize HIV . TIME.com : A newborn may be cured of HIV . Is the end of AIDS near ? That 's the scenario in about 80 % of those who are infected with HIV . But in a fortunate 20 % , this arms race is stacked in the host 's favor , with antibodies that are able to neutralize not just the latest , specific mutated version of HIV but a broader range of viral marauders . Such broadly neutralizing antibodies are the holy grail of AIDS vaccine researchers , who hope to corral these agents in an immunization that can protect against infection . But most attempts to convince the body to churn out these antibodies have n't been successful , primarily because the antibodies take on an unusual shape that marks them for destruction by the very immune system that generated them . In addition , these antibodies can bind to and destroy healthy cells as well as HIV-infected ones , making them a potentially useful but unpredictable partner in fighting the virus . TIME.com : Study explains how the first effective HIV vaccine worked . But by carefully mapping the different mutations that HIV generates , and the resulting antibodies made against them in an African patient who is able to produce broadly neutralizing antibodies , Haynes and his colleagues believe they have come up with a way to drive the immune system to preferentially churn out these HIV-fighting immune cells . `` We followed individuals from the time of HIV infection to the time they generated broadly neutralizing antibodies , and mapped and isolated the virus at every step along the way so we now do n't have to guess any more about what induced those antibodies , '' he says . `` We have a map on how to recreate the sequential ( versions of HIV ) that could drive particular antibody lineages . '' The work , which was published in the journal Nature , was possible because Haynes had collected and saved blood samples over the course of about three years from roughly 400 patients , starting within weeks of their infection . Researchers found that the first round of broadly neutralizing antibodies generally appeared about 14 weeks after infection , and these were better able to bind to portions of HIV that the virus does n't change as quickly or as frequently . That makes the antibodies useful weapons in attacking the virus ' Achilles heel , and a potentially powerful target for an effective vaccine . TIME.com : Treatment as prevention : How the new way to control HIV came to be . `` Now we have a picture of how these antibodies developed , so what we are doing is figuring out how to use them to make a vaccine , '' says Haynes . The challenge will be to push the body to pump out these antibodies rather than the more specific ones aimed at the ever-changing portions of HIV . It turns out that most infected people do produce these antibodies , but HIV distracts the immune system into crowding them out with all the subsequent iterations they convince the body to make against the mutating virus . `` We are trying to take an unusual or rare event and make it more common , '' says Haynes . TIME.com : HIV drugs may prevent infection in healthy individuals . Ultimately , he adds , a vaccine will probably need to generate several of these broadly neutralizing antibodies ; each person tends to make unique versions that have differing efficacy in stopping HIV . But there 's precedent for such an approach , since the antiretroviral drugs that now control HIV infections are used in combination to hit the virus at more than one point in its life cycle . `` The hope is that by mapping individual pathways to generating broadly neutralizing antibodies , we can find some commonalities among people even though everyone is different , and that gives us hope for using these pathways in a vaccine , '' says Haynes . `` It 's a huge effort but it looks like it 's going to pay off . '' This article was initially published on TIME.com . Anti-HIV antibodies may spur AIDS vaccine development . & copy 2012 TIME , Inc. TIME is a registered trademark of Time Inc. Used with permission .
They say they ' ve discovered a way to give our immune system an advantage . The immune system could be used to knock out HIV - immune cells . There is hope that the technology could be used in developing a vaccine .