A researcher working with The Scripps Research Institute on FAU’s Jupiter campus was awarded nearly $6 million to further develop an HIV/AIDS vaccine on Wednesday.

The vaccine, created by Scripps professor Michael Farzan, has showed consistently effective results after being tested on lab animals. The grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will help fund his research for the next four years.

“I’m grateful to the Gates Foundation for its strong support of our research and for its continued commitment to eradicating HIV/AIDS throughout the world,” Farzan said in the news release.

The vaccine causes muscle tissue to release proteins that attach to the virus and trick it into thinking it bonded to a human cell. It then floats through the bloodstream, harmless and unable to reproduce. After receiving the vaccine, lab animals were protected from the HIV infection for up to a year.

For more information, visit the Scripps website.