2019 Physics/Theoretical Colloquium
 
Thursday, May 23th , 2019
3:45 – 4:45 p.m.
MSL Auditorium (TA-03, Bldg. 1698)
 
Refreshments at 3:15pm
 
Speaker:   Professor Pamela Bjorkman
 
Centennial Professor of Biology
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering 114-96
California Institute of Technology
 
“A Molecular Arms Race: The Immune System Versus HIV”
 
Abstract: 
 
Over 30 years after the emergence of HIV, there is no effective vaccine, and AIDS remains a threat to global public health. Following HIV infection, the human immune response is unable to clear the virus, partly because the virus rapidly mutates to evade antibodies, one of our most important defenses against pathogens. In the absence of treatment with anti-retroviral drugs (unfortunately not readily available in the developing world), an HIV-infected person’s immune system gradually collapses and he/she cannot fight off normally innocuous pathogens in the environment. Antibodies, which we readily produce against other viruses, don’t work well against HIV. We hypothesize this is partly because antibody arms, which can both normally “hang on” to a virus until it is destroyed, don’t have the right dimensions to stay attached to HIV. We seek to alter natural antibodies using molecular engineering so that HIV is powerless to mutate against them. One engineering project involves designing and creating new antibody architectures with arms that can remain attached to HIV even as it mutates. We also engineer the antibody combining site by using chemical principles to improve the interface between antibodies bound to HIV proteins, starting with experimentally-determined three-dimensional structures of antibody/HIV complexes, and using bioinformatics to predict common pathways of HIV escape. The goal is to create potent antibody reagents that can be delivered to prevent or treat HIV/AIDS.