APPLICATION OF DATA MODELLING IN BUILDING STRUCTURE-ACTIVITY CLASSIFIERS FROM Plasmodium falciparum BIOASSAY SCREENS

Abstract

Certain elite controllers have very potent broadly neutralizing antibodies that neutralize a range of HIV viruses by targeting certain conserved regions on the virus. Designing immunogens to elicit such broadly neutralizing antibodies capable of neutralizing all HIV variants and types that are found globally has proven extremely challenging. This finding has not only provided novel strategies of rational vaccine design but has also led to the emergence of epitope driven vaccines. In the same direction we performed the computational grafting of discontinuous Bcell epitopes of gp120 on suitable scaffolds. 431 scaffolds were screened for sites capable of carrying the epitopes of interest. Out of the 431 candidates, four structures were the successfully designed which would be used by the wet lab experimentalists for further work and analysis. The main idea behind the work is that given the appropriate immunogen, it should be possible to elicit these broadly neutralizing antibody responses by vaccination.