Objective
The impact of HIV/AIDS on world healthcare is tremendous, particularly in the Third World. To curtail the HIV epidemic a cheap and effective vaccine is urgently needed, but despite massive research efforts no vaccine is available yet. Although most vaccines work by inducing neutralizing antibodies, HIV has evolved many ways to limit the induction and binding of neutralizing antibodies. The challenge is to engineer Env subunit vaccines that do induce neutralizing antibodies efficiently. One aspect that has been highly underappreciated is conformational heterogeneity of Env. Conformational flexibility is exerted at three different levels. First, flexible variable loops and N-glycans protruding from the conserved protein core cause “local flexibility” at the protein surface. Second, movement between the conserved inner and outer domain of gp120 causes “tertiary flexibility”. Third, movement of the three gp120 protomers in the trimeric complex, resembling a flower that opens and closes, causes “quaternary flexibility”. These three levels of flexibility provide very unstable targets for recognition by low affinity B cell receptors on naïve B cells, diminishing the chance of efficient B cell activation and the secretion of neutralizing antibodies. Using a number of novel structure-based vaccine design strategies that include the introduction of stabilizing disulfide bonds, we intend to remove the undesirable flexibility on Env trimers to provide a homogeneous and stable target to B cells. This should result in stabilized Env immunogens that are better in inducing neutralizing antibodies compared to the current state-of-the art Env vaccines. This is a highly interdisciplinary project on the crossroads of immunology and protein chemistry and should result in protein immunogens that elicit improved neutralizing antibody responses against HIV and should provide answers to fundamental questions on how B cells “see” protein immunogens.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology
- medical and health sciences health sciences infectious diseases RNA viruses HIV
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs vaccines
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
ERC-2011-StG_20101109
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Host institution
1105AZ Amsterdam
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.