Advances in antibody research & what it means for AIDS vaccine R&D
IAVI Blogs
Colleagues,
I hope you are all doing well. I wanted to give you all the heads up about several new research papers out that show tremendous momentum in an area the field has identified as crucial for developing a potentially powerful HIV vaccine as we head to the AIDS Vaccine Conference in Bangkok next month.
The papers are about antibodies that neutralize a wide range of HIV variants – called broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV. As you might remember, IAVI & affiliated researchers in 2009 identified the first new broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) in more than a decade. Since then, research and discoveries in this area of AIDS vaccine R&D has really taken off.
In a paper out in Nature today, IAVI and our partners report the isolation of 17 of these bNAbs, revealing new targets for vaccine deisgn.
Press release: http://t.co/Y28kwRa Paper: http://t.co/rhP39XW
A collaboration led by the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center (VRC) last week published a new paper in Science on how specific broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV evolve in response to infection.
Press release: http://t.co/buxZ2or
And another study recently published in Science by our partners at Rockefeller University reports the discovery of bNAbs targeting the CD4 binding site on HIV, the site where HIV engages the CD4 receptor on T cells to initiate its infection.
Press release: http://bit.ly/ozuICp
As Tony Fauci noted in the NIH release, the techniques involved in this work also have promising potential on a range of pathogens. A good primer on what all of this means for AIDS vaccine R&D is a Q&A by our friends at Science Speaks with IAVI Chief Scientific Officer Wayne Koff: http://t.co/CnTFNcc
Please let us know if you or anyone at your organizations have any questions and comments. And I would invite you to pass on any of our tweets (http://twitter.com/aidsvaccine) or share the news on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/AIDSvaccine) or other social media outlets
Best,
Vince
Vince Blaser
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
New Media Specialist
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New York, NY 10038
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