The scientific team, led by Ikerbasque researcher Edurne Rujas and Pablo Carravilla, also an Ikerbasque researcher, is working on the design of optimized antibodies through molecular engineering—an approach that aims to overcome one of the greatest challenges in the fight against the virus: its high variability.
The project focuses on studying how antibodies interact with a conserved region of HIV, identifying the key parts that determine their neutralizing capacity in order to design improved antibodies and use that information for the development of more effective vaccines. “Our goal is to strengthen the immune response against parts of the virus that hardly change, which opens the door to longer-lasting therapies and new vaccination strategies,” explains Edurne Rujas.
To achieve this, the team is also developing advanced super-resolution microscopy applications capable of visualizing particles as small as viruses and antibodies. These tools make it possible to measure how antibodies bind to the virus and to understand how their biophysical properties influence this process.
This approach not only provides fundamental knowledge about virus–antibody interactions, but also lays the groundwork for designing more effective treatments and innovative vaccines. “These new technologies help us visualize what until recently was invisible,” emphasizes Pablo Carravilla.
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