Antibodies are the correlate of protection for most existing vaccines. High affinity antibodies are generated by the diversification of selected naïve B cells in so called germinal centers (GCs). GCs are structures in the secondary lymphoid organs where B cells multiply by fast divisions and diversify through the incorporation of somatic hypermutations in the genes corresponding to the B cell receptor. For highly genetically variable viruses such as HIV-1, influenza A virus and SARS-CoV-2, only antibodies specific to conserved epitopes of viral proteins will lead to potent long-term protection. In addition, for HIV-1, potent neutralization of the virus is only achieved if unusually high levels of antibody somatic hypermutations are acquired through extensive germinal center reactions. Highly mutated and broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1 develop during infection in some individuals but have never been successfully activated in individuals by vaccination. The requirement for a vaccine to be protective against HIV-1 is to first activate the appropriate naïve precursor B cells that bind conserved epitopes of the surface viral antigen, and second to stimulate these B cells to enter germinal centers and acquire high levels of B cell receptor somatic hypermutations. The overall objective of VIVA is to study the process of specific naïve B cell activation in the presence of competing polyclonal B cells, and the regulation of B cell recruitment to germinal centers. Understanding these processes in greater detail will help generating a vaccine against HIV-1.