on July 21, 2016
The IRB is part of an international team established by the Texas Biomedical Research Institute to develop multi-layered HIV defense strategy.
Texas Biomedical Research Institute is one of the world’s leading independent biomedical research institutions dedicated to advancing health worldwide through innovative biomedical research.
Dr. Ruth Ruprecht, Director of the Texas Biomed AIDS Research Program and coordinator of this project, has brought together experts from the United States and Europe in the fields of viral pathogenesis, molecular biology, whole body imaging, monoclonal antibody development, immunology, lymph node-targeted vaccine design and animal modeling, to launch a coordinated and innovative approach to the development of an AIDS vaccine. For this project, she has been granted $23 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The goal of this five-year project is to establish a vaccine approach that targets a frontline defense at the mucosa, while simultaneously generating backup immune responses in the blood and tissues. Thus, this project will assess the induction of host defenses against HIV simultaneously at multiple levels, a research plan that has been inspired from the military strategy termed ‘defense-in-depth’, which seeks to prevent a country from being overrun after the frontline has been penetrated by the enemy.
Dr. Antonio Lanzavecchia from the IRB, affiliated to the Università della Svizzera italiana, will collaborate on this project by constructing and producing monoclonal antibodies that can be tested in cell culture and in experimental models as a first line of defense.
