Friday, May 9, 2025 5/9/2025

Characterizing antibody responses to HIV-1 vaccination in next-generation immune humanized mice

Award Number: R01AI176521
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

Group Awards By:

View Award Description

Characterizing antibody responses to HIV-1 vaccination in next-generation immune humanized mice - PROJECT SUMMARY With no universal cure, development of an effective vaccine to prevent HIV-1 infection remains a primary goal. A major hurdle for the development of successful vaccination strategies has been the lack of affordable, accessible, tractable, and relevant preclinical model systems. Investigations on HIV infection, pathogenesis, and prevention using small animal models have been limiting due to the species-specific tropism of HIV. The advent of immunodeficient mice harboring a human immune system (HIS) in many ways has broadened accessibility and interest in HIV-related translational studies including viral replication, T cell depletion, methods of transmission, and evaluation of antiretroviral therapies. Nevertheless, efforts to develop vaccination strategies against HIV in current HIS mice have been thwarted due to poor adaptive immune responses and antigen- specific antibody development following immunization. Thus, there is a great need for advances in HIS mice that promote vaccine-mediated antibody development to specific epitopes that would easily translate to humans. We hypothesize that enhanced human T cell function and priming via human antigen presenting cells in HIS mice will facilitate efficient T/B cell interactions and enable evaluation of vaccination strategies against HIV-1. To this end, we have developed a novel HIS mouse strain expressing human leukocyte antigens (HLA)-DQ and HLA-A in the absence of murine major histocompatibility complex (MHC) I/II (to ensure human T cell selection on a more appropriate molecules in the mouse thymus) in combination with human CSF1 knocked into the murine Csf1 locus. Based on published data from our group and others, this novel strain, we anticipate, will support improved T cell development/function as well as the development of human myeloid cells with increased capacity to prime human T cells following immunization and facilitate HIV-1-specific antibody production. We will leverage this new translational HIS platform to: i) Determine the scope of the human adaptive immune response to infection with HIV-1 R5 virus, ii) Determine the neutralization ability of, define the Env epitopes targeted by, and delineate the sequence features for the human adaptive immune response to HIV-1 immunization, and iii) assess a novel vaccination strategy using optimized multivalent immunogens for broad neutralizing antibodies (bNAb) elicitation. Together, these results will provide critical insights into the utility of this advanced HIS model system to assess HIV-1 vaccination strategies capable of generating bNAbs to accelerate prioritization to validate in human clinical trials.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $389,277 )
2025	2025	VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER	1161 21ST AVE S STE D3300 MCN	NASHVILLE	TN	37232	DAVIDSON	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	3	3/11/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$389,277
														Subtotal = $389,277

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $707,737 )
2024	2024	VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER	1161 21ST AVE S STE D3300 MCN	NASHVILLE	TN	37232	DAVIDSON	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	001	2	5/23/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$70,773
2024	2024	VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER	1161 21ST AVE S STE D3300 MCN	NASHVILLE	TN	37232	DAVIDSON	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	2	2/21/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$636,964
														Subtotal = $707,737

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $720,697 )
2023	2023	VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER	1161 21ST AVE S STE D3300 MCN	NASHVILLE	TN	37232	DAVIDSON	USA	Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research	000	1	3/21/2023	NEW	$720,697
														Subtotal = $720,697

Grand Total All Awards = $1,817,711

Top

All Categories

About

Search

Reports

Data Submission

Award Information

Characterizing antibody responses to HIV-1 vaccination in next-generation immune humanized mice

Award Number: R01AI176521

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

Federal Websites

Department of Health & Human Services

HHS Operating Divisions

HHS Staff Divisions

Download A Document Viewer