Despite 40 years of research the HIV epidemic remains a significant global health challenge and an HIV vaccine is still elusive. The recent results from the AMP trial have shown that a broadly neutralizing antibody can provide protection from infection. This has important implications for the pipeline of HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies being developed for prevention as well as vaccines that aim to elicit protective antibodies. This webinar will discuss the role of antibodies in both passive and active vaccination approaches.

Presenter

Lynn Morris is a principal medical scientist at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is also a Research Professor and Director of the Antibody Immunity Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand. Over the last 20 years Lynn has made significant contributions to understanding the antibody response to HIV infection and co-discovered the CAP256-VRC26.25 monoclonal antibody that is undergoing clinical testing for HIV prevention. Her laboratory performs neutralizing antibody assays for HIV vaccine trials and played a key role in the proof-of-concept Antibody Mediated Prevention (AMP) trial.

Moderator

Guido Ferrari MD is Professor of Surgery at Duke University and in the Department Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. He is also affiliated faculty at the Duke Global Health Institute, Duke Human Vaccine Institute, and Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town Department of Immunology. Since 1995 Dr. Ferrari has been evaluating vaccine-induced cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) and antibody dependent cellular cytotoxic (ADCC) responses for the development of AIDS vaccines. Dr. Ferrari has also been the Director of the Centerf for AIDS Research Immunology Core and of ADCC core laboratory for the Primate AIDS Vaccine Evaluation Group (PAVEG). He was the first to characterize vaccine-induced cross-clade clade CD8 CTL responses and the difference in class I-restricted epitope recognition between individuals with HIV-1 infection and vaccine recipients. He followed this initial epitope mapping of cellular responses with epitope mapping of ADCC responses to identify the anti-C1C2 epitope as the most recognized epitope by ADCC Ab responses in people living with HIV and vaccine recipients. individuals with HIV.