Work

Structural Biology and the Design of Effective Vaccines for HIV-1 and Other Viruses

Year: 2010

Type: book-chapter

Abstract: Structural biology provides a wealth of information about the three-dimensional organization and chemical makeup of proteins. An understanding of atomic-level structure offers enormous potential to design rationally proteins that stimulate specific immune responses. Yet current vaccine development efforts makes little use of structural information. At the Vaccine Research Center, a major goal is to apply structural techniques to vaccine design for challenging pathogens, that include human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and other enveloped viruses such as influenza, Ebola, and respiratory syncytial viruses. Our three-part strategy involves 1.) the definition of the functional viral spike at the atomic level 2.) achieving a structural understanding of how neutralizing antibodies recognize the spike, and 3.) rational development of proteins that can elicit a specific antibody response. Overall, our strategy aims to incorporate information about viral spike-antibody interactions, to assimilate immunogenic feedback, and to leverage recent advances in immunofocusing and computational biology. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Source: Humana Press eBooks

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-60761-512-5_39