Daniel Lingwood, PhD

A New Vaccine Approach to Improve Targeting of Rapidly Evolving Viruses

The Lingwood Lab is focused on the key question: how does the B cell response derive biochemical affinity needed to engage/target diverse molecular targets, such as those presented by viruses, bacteria and vaccines?

Our goal is to then apply this information to design next generation immunogens that elicit
broadly protective antibodies against hypervariable pathogens that continue to resist conventional vaccination, e.g. influenza and HIV.

Normally, a vaccine will provide a set of molecular instructions to B cells to elicit strong protective antibody responses. However, for hypervariable pathogens that are continually evolving, it has proven difficult to teach B cells to engage conserved sites of vulnerability that stay consistent through these changes.

My laboratory has discovered that humans contain specific antibody genes that naturally encode for broadly protective antibodies targeting these conserved features, and that these ‘hardcoded’ antibody responses can be selectively activated and amplified by applying rationally designed ‘germline stimulating’ vaccines within purpose-built humanized vaccine models.

It is an honor to receive the MGH Research Scholar award as recognition by my peers, and I am excited to position our new vaccine approach to elicit broadly protective immunity in humans.