HIV has proven a hard target for vaccine design. The most promising approach, germline-targeting (GT), proposes a series of immunizations: a first shot to activate inexperienced B cells—antibody-producing white blood cells—followed by a sequence of immunogens that are more and more like the HIV Envelope (Env) protein. The ultimate goal of GT immunization is to coach B cells into producing broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) capable of binding to conserved sites on HIV Env, which seldom change despite HIV’s penchant for rapid diversification. A substantial amount of research has demonstrated the feasibility of the initial activation step; now, in two papers simultaneously out in Science (Xie et al.)and Science Immunology (Wang et al.), researchers at the Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard have developed a comprehensive platform for HIV vaccine research capable of both preclinically validating next-step boost immunogens and providing new insights into the basic biology of the antibody response. These articles have been published in tandem with manuscripts from the Scripps Research Institute group in Science (Steichen et al.)and Science Translational Medicine (Cottrell et al). This suite of four papers is the outcome of years of intense collaboration between the institutes and represent a major step towards an HIV vaccine.
