Stock Photo - Reportage on the vaccine research institute?s (vri) immunomonitoring platform. the vaccine research institute?s aim is to speed up the development of an hiv vaccine. it stems from the anrs?s (french national aids and hepatitis research agency) vaccine programme. research is carried out on the mononuclear cells in the blood. the lab receives blood samples from people who have, and haven?t had the vaccine. the blood cells are cultured then brought into contact with the antigenic peptide. the tubes are then centrifuged to collect the cell residue and extract the rna from the cells. the rna allows the researchers to discover whether the cells (vaccinated or not) express the necessary genes to produce immune response proteins. the vaccine?s efficiency can then be gauged.