# Enhancement of the HIV Antibody Database tool for Open Science

> **NIH NIH P01** · CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2021 · $139,981

## Abstract

Project Summary
The goal of our P01 HIVRAD Project is to advance our germline-targeting approach to HIV-1
vaccine design by cycles of immunogen design and testing in transgenic mice and macaques.
The experiments proposed in this P01 grant will produce candidate immunogens for testing in
macaques by collaborator Dr. Malcolm Martin and for vaccine trials in humans. One innovative
aspect of the project is its integrated approach to structure determination and immunogen
design, selection, and evaluation - the same people solving structures are also involved with
immunogen design and screening, allowing a rapid and informed cycle of iterative
improvements of immunogens.
As part of this integrated approach, the Bjorkman lab has developed the software package
HIV Antibody Database, which was designed to enable frictionless access to, comparisons of,
and analyses of broadly neutralizing anti-HIV antibody sequences, structures, and neutralization
data. This program includes a data analysis tool to identify HIV-1 Env sequence features
responsible for neutralization/binding potency variability across strains. This innovative tool has
allowed us to determine key interactions at Ab/Env interfaces using a combination of structural
and bioinformatics analyses. We propose to enhance the HIV Antibody Database tool by
improving its robustness and sustainability by integrating publicly available data streams,
adopting standard formats for input and output of structural data, optimizing performance, and
integrating another program developed by the Bjorkman lab, Variant Database, which can
query a viral mutational landscape. Variant Database can quickly search SARS-CoV-2 genome
datasets with over a million sequences. Thus, it can be used to detect emerging mutation
patterns that might be overlooked in conventional phylogenetic analyses. We propose to
generalize Variant Database to analyze different virus taxa, including HIV-1. Variant Database
will be enhanced to be more robust and sustainable, and this version will be integrated with HIV
Antibody Database.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10406832
- **Project number:** 3P01AI100148-08S1
- **Recipient organization:** CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** Pamela J Bjorkman
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $139,981
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2021-08-31 → 2022-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10406832

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10406832, Enhancement of the HIV Antibody Database tool for Open Science (3P01AI100148-08S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10406832. Licensed CC0.

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