 The vaccine was then tested on a group of at-risk individuals in Thailand.In 1991, AIDSVAX originally consisted of the B envelope of recombinant gp120, a glycoprotein unique to HIV's surface, from a strain of the virus, MN, known at the time to infect people in the United States and Europe.The vaccine was designed to provoke the production of antibodies in subjects that would strip the gp120 protein off of the HIV viral particles, effectively disabling the virus so that it could not bind to or invade susceptible cells.