Broadly neutralizing HIV-1 antibodies

[citation needed] Online databases like bNAber[4] (now defunct) and LANL[5] constantly report and update the discovery of new HIV bNAbs.

This antibody attached to a "conserved" portion of gp120 that outlasts many of its mutations, affecting 17/24 tested strains at low doses.

[6] By 2006, researchers had identified a few so-called "broadly neutralizing antibodies" (bNAbs) that worked on multiple HIV strains.

They individually probed 30,000 of one woman's antibody-producing B cells and isolated two that were able to stop more than 70% of 162 divergent HIV strains from establishing an infection.

Over a year, he repeatedly donated blood, which researchers used to create a timeline of changes in his virus' gp120, his antibody response and the ultimate emergence of a bNAb.

A screen of massive gp120 libraries led to one that strongly bound both an original antibody and the mature bNAb that evolved from it.

Giving patients a modified gp120 that contains little more than the epitope that both antibodies target could act to "prime" the immune system, followed by a booster that contains trimer spikes in the most natural configuration possible.