IMMUNOLOGY2026™ Conference Recordings For Attendees-Discovery and targeting of human B cell epitopes to counter emerging threats

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The symposium opened by honoring early-career immunology investigators, then featured Dr. Camila Coelho, who studies protective immunity against emerging pathogens. She described how her lab quickly focused on mpox, an outbreak that expanded from a small number of countries to more than 130. Coelho explained that current orthopoxvirus vaccines are safe but weakly immunogenic, and that there are limited effective therapies.<br /><br />Her team used human samples from mpox convalescent patients and vaccinated individuals to identify B-cell responses against the A35 protein, an envelope antigen. They isolated single B cells, cloned monoclonal antibodies, and found several high-affinity antibodies that protected mice from vaccinia and mpox challenge. One antibody, EV356, was especially effective, and structural studies showed that three protective antibodies bind the same groove on A35.<br /><br />In human cohorts, antibodies to this A35 epitope were more common in mpox-convalescent people than in vaccinated people, correlated with neutralizing activity, and were associated with shorter illness and no hospitalizations. The epitope is conserved across poxviruses, and the antibodies showed some cross-protection, though not complete elimination of infection. Coelho concluded by describing a promising combination antibody strategy that prevented both death and weight loss in animal models, while noting ongoing work on clade-specific differences, mechanisms, and future testing in primates.

Meta Tag

Date April 17, 2026 8:00 AM - 8:30 AM

Room 102

Session AAI ASPIRE Awards Symposium

Speaker Camila Coelho

Track Immune Response Regulation: Molecular Mechanisms (IRM)

Year 2026

Keywords

mpox

immunology

A35 protein

monoclonal antibodies

protective immunity

orthopoxvirus vaccines

B-cell responses

April 17, 2026 8:00 AM - 8:30 AM

102

AAI ASPIRE Awards Symposium

Camila Coelho

Immune Response Regulation: Molecular Mechanisms (IRM)

2026