Publications

A recently published article has confirmed that a novel immunization method of sustained and escalating antigen delivery augments the magnitude, quality and durability of humoral immune responses. For decades, effective human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) vaccines have been elusive, with phase 3 trials showing minimal or no efficacy so far. Recently, passive transfer of broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies into humans confirmed prior results from macaques that neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) play a key role in preventing infection.1 A long-standing challenge has been eliciting analogous broadly nAbs via vaccination to protect against most circulating strains, or so-called Tier 2 neutralizing responses. Nonetheless, innovations in HIV-1 vaccine design have seen significant stepwise advancements, including immunogen designs for more native-like Env trimer presentation that allow targeting of critical epitopes, development of improved adjuvants and more recently, leveraging frontier vaccine platforms such as mRNA-lipid nanoparticles2 or self-assembling nanoparticle arrays (eOD-GT8 60mer) to selectively elicit rare broadly neutralizing responses.