SAN DIEGO -- The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla has received funding to create the world's only center dedicated to the so-called neutralizing antibody approach, which is intended to lead to an AIDS vaccine, it was reported Wednesday.

The five-year, 60-member project is being funded by a $30 million grant from the New York-based International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Several leading AIDS scientists from around the world and their research staff will start working at Scripps in a few months, Scripps immunologist Dennis Burton, the project's scientific director, told the newspaper.

They will join four researchers already studying AIDS vaccine strategies at Scripps: Burton; Ian Wilson, a structural biologist; Phil Dawson, a peptide chemist; and Chi-Huey Wong, a sugar chemist, the newspaper reported.

The Scripps project is not the first to attempt to create an AIDS vaccine using the neutralizing antibody approach.

Last year, Merck Inc. and the National Institutes of Health created a vaccine that was tested on patients in four continents. The vaccine not only failed to work as intended; it also may have raised their risk of becoming infected, the Union-Tribune reported.

All clinical trials related to the vaccine from Merck were stopped or postponed indefinitely.

Worldwide, more than 25 million people have died from AIDS and about 33 million are living with HIV, the virus that causes it.