Cited research Science doi:10.1126/science.1187659 (2010); Science doi:10.1126/science.1192819 (2010)

Newly discovered antibodies that can neutralize 90% of HIV-1 strains could aid the design of better vaccines.

Antibodies that act against such a wide spectrum of HIV-1 strains are rare. Peter Kwong and John Mascola at the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and their colleagues screened the antibodies generated by 25 million B cells from HIV patients for ones that bind to part of a viral envelope protein that is similar across strains and provokes an immune response.

The team found three antibodies that targeted a wide swathe of HIV-1 strains. Structural analysis of one antibody, VRC01, showed that it bound to the virus in a similar way to HIV's host cells — CD4+ T cells. H.L.