Researchers map pathways to protective antibodies for an HIV vaccine
"A goal for an HIV-1 vaccine is to induce broadly neutralizing antibodies," said senior author Barton F. Haynes, M.D., director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI). "One strategy for the induction of these desirable antibodies is to find a way to develop a small portion of the envelope's structure that these desired antibodies recognize -- something we have now shown is possible." In the first of two papers published online March 15 in Science Translational Medicine , Haynes and colleagues -- including lead author Mattia Bonsignori, M.D. of DHVI -- traced a series of events that led to the development of broadly neutralizing antibodies in an HIV infected person over the course of five years. The researchers found that the infected person's immune system responded to the virus with unusual, cooperative efforts between different B-cell lineages to induce broadly neutralizing antibodies. The antibody development process also involved acquisition...