# Complete mapping of immune selection from antibodies to HIV

> **NIH NIH R01** · FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER · 2020 · $480,355

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
This isolation of exceptionally broad anti-HIV antibodies has revealed sites of vulnerability
on the virus’s surface protein, Env. Major efforts are now underway to elicit such antibodies
with vaccines, or to use the antibodies directly as therapeutics. The design of such vaccines
and therapies requires carefully characterizing how monoclonal antibodies and polyclonal
sera recognize Env. We have recently developed a new deep-sequencing based approach to
functionally characterize antibody-Env interactions on a large scale. Here we will greatly
extend the utility of this approach by making it possible to easily and completely map the
effects of all amino-acid mutations on viral recognition by both neutralizing and non-
neutralizing antibodies or sera. Specifically, we will:
 1) Create libraries of viruses carrying all single amino-acid mutations to Env, as well as
 many combinations of mutations. These libraries will be designed in a way that
 enables them to be easily and cheaply characterized by deep sequencing.
 2) Develop methods to use the libraries to efficiently map how mutations to Env affect
 virus recognition by neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibodies and sera.
 3) Create algorithms and software to analyze and visualize the “Big Data” sets
 generated by the mappings.
We will use these tools to completely map how Env mutations affect recognition by
important monoclonal antibodies, as well as natural and vaccine-induced plasma responses.
We will also distribute the experimental and computational tools so that they can be easily
used by the entire HIV research community. Overall, this work will develop powerful
methods to functionally map the antigenic effects of mutations to HIV. Such maps will aid in
the basic study of HIV and inform the design of vaccines and therapeutics.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9832661
- **Project number:** 5R01AI140891-02
- **Recipient organization:** FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Jesse D Bloom
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $480,355
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-12-07 → 2023-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9832661

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9832661, Complete mapping of immune selection from antibodies to HIV (5R01AI140891-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9832661. Licensed CC0.

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