WIKIMEDIA, NIHBroadly neutralizing antibodies, those that could squash a wide swath of virus types, are the supreme goal of HIV vaccine development. Although some people infected with HIV develop these antibodies naturally over time, scientists have not been able to recapitulate them through vaccines developed in the lab. Now, three studies published today (June 18) advance two different strategies for inducing such broadly neutralizing antibodies.
“I think both [approaches] have merit,” said John Mascola, director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was a funder of the research. “In the long run, the two could be complementary.”
The mature strategy
HIV is not a single virus, but a collection of diverse variants. A practical vaccine, then, would elicit antibodies that recognize a common element among all of them—namely, conserved epitopes of the glycan shield surrounding the virus.
The development of immunogens resembling these glycoproteins has been years in the making. Advances in understanding the structure and binding behaviors of various glycoprotein domains of the envelope protein helped Weill Cornell Medical College’s John Moore and his colleagues to develop a stable, soluble glycoprotein ...
