Humoral immunity to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

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Great advances have been made in the detection and treatment of HIV and AIDS, but a vaccine to prevent HIV infection, one that works and is safe, still lies many years away. Our research aims to bring this day forward: First, to gain a better groundwork for the humoral arm of the immune response to HIV, we shall determine recognition signatures on the outer envelope of HIV which will induce antibodies that protect against HIV infection. This will be done with antibody fragments cloned from blood samples of llamas because they have particular advantages for analytical work. Second, we will study antibodies that may have the opposite effect, enhancing infection rather than protecting against it. Blood samples taken from human volunteers who have given a test vaccine will be analysed to see if the balance between protective antibodies and infection-enhancing antibodies can be shifted so that protection from HIV becomes dominant. Protective antibody fragments will also be explored for future use as possible microbicides that can be introduced into the vagina to reduce the risk of infection during and after sexual intercourse.