The aim of this article is to present the attempts of immunization against HIV-1 with the use of protein products of the env gene. Newly elaborated techniques allowed replacing traditional vaccination methods, ineffective in case of highly variable HIV-1 virus and investigating alternative solutions such as: immunization with the use of recombinant viruses as vectors or "naked" DNA. The results of these studies are promising and indicate the way to solve this problem. However, because of high variability of HIV-1, haplotype variability in human population and still insufficient knowledge on host:pathogen interaction, it seems that effective, universal vaccine against HIV-1 will not, if ever, be constructed soon.