Scientists at Scripps Research have made a significant discovery in the field of HIV vaccine development. Their research reveals a unique immune response to certain HIV vaccines, where antibodies target other antibodies bound to viral proteins. This finding could pave the way for the design of more effective vaccines.
This electron microscope image shows a human T cell under attack by HIV . Human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV — the infection that can damage the immune system and lead to the deadly disease AIDS — hasn’t been in the news as much as it was during the beginning of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Still, an estimated 1.3 million new HIV infections were reported around the world in 2023, with 630,000 related deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
Many vaccines work by introducing a protein to the body that resembles part of a virus. Ideally, the immune system will produce long-lasting antibodies recognizing that virus, thereby providing protection. The observation came about when researchers in the lab of Andrew Ward, a professor of integrative structural and computational biology at Scripps Research, was using advanced imaging tools to study how antibodies evolve after multiple HIV vaccine doses. A technique the lab invented, known as Electron Microscopy-Based Polyclonal Epitope Mapping, or EMPEM, let the researchers see exactly where on the virus antibodies bind.
“It adds to our understanding of what these vaccines are capable of eliciting,” Brown said. “We don’t fully know what these antibodies do yet, but by understanding and future experiments looking into why they get elicited and what they do, we can adjust vaccine studies to make them more effective by either harnessing or getting rid of it.
Implementation of any vaccine stemming from this discovery is years away from human trials, but Brown said an effective vaccine would have a great impact.
HIV Vaccine AIDS Immunology Antibodies Scripps Research
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