Highlights of IMMUNOLOGY2026™ - Invited Program Recordings-Learning B and T cell immunology from novel vaccine efforts

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Video Summary

The lecture introduced immunologist Shane Crotty, whose work has deeply influenced vaccine science. He first described research on flu vaccines and COVID-19 that showed why sampling only blood can miss important immune responses in the upper airways. His lab found that Flumist, the nasal flu vaccine, triggered strong local B-cell responses in the nose even when blood tests showed little change, suggesting new ways to evaluate mucosal vaccines.<br /><br />The main focus was HIV vaccine development. Crotty explained how his team used a germline-targeting strategy: first priming rare naïve B cells, then guiding them through sequential booster immunizations so they could mature into broadly neutralizing antibody-producing cells. A key discovery was that slow antigen delivery and the adjuvant SMNP greatly improved outcomes by increasing antigen retention, engaging more lymph nodes, and sustaining germinal centers for months. These long-lived germinal centers allowed extensive B-cell evolution.<br /><br />He also showed that TFH cells were central to success: they remained functional over time, helped sustain germinal centers, and were strongly associated with better neutralizing antibody responses. In monkeys, the strategy produced broadly neutralizing antibodies in serum for the first time against a human-relevant HIV specificity. He concluded that these findings may help HIV and other vaccine efforts, including future human trials.

Keywords

Shane Crotty

vaccine science

mucosal immunity

Flumist

HIV vaccine development

germline-targeting

broadly neutralizing antibodies

TFH cells

germinal centers