Peter D. Kwong, PhD

At Columbia University, my research has focused on Antibodyomics, the informatics of antibody recognition, development, and improvement. Numerous antibodies have been identified from HIV-1-infected donors that neutralize diverse strains of HIV-1. These antibodies could provide the basis for a B cell-mediated HIV-1 vaccine. However, it has been unclear how to elicit similar antibodies by vaccination. To address this issue, my group along with colleagues from Columbia University (L. Shapiro, B. Honig, R. Friesner) and elsewhere (Academia Sinica, ADARC, NIH, Vanderbilt University, University of Kansas) have undertaken an informatics-based approach to understand the genetic and immunologic processes controlling the development of HIV-1-neutralizing antibodies. As genetic information is currently the fastest growing database of biological information, we have focused on incorporating next-generation sequencing of B cell transcripts to determine the origin, maturation pathway, and prevalence of broadly neutralizing antibody lineages (Antibodyomics1, 2, 4, and 6). We have also incorporated large-scale robotic analyses of serum neutralization to identify and quantify neutralizing antibodies from donor cohorts (Antibodyomics3). Statistical analyses furnish another layer of insight (Antibodyomics5), with informatics incorporating physical characteristics of antibodies and their targets through molecular dynamics simulations and with free energy perturbation analyses providing information-rich output (Antibodyomics7 and 8). Functional interrogation of individual antibodies (Antibodyomics9) and synthetic antibody libraries (Antibodyomics10) also yields multi-dimensional data by which to understand and improve antibodies. Antibodyomics thus comprise resolution-enhancing tools, which collectively embody an information-driven discovery engine towards development of effective B cell-based vaccines. These efforts synergize with the efforts of my group at the Vaccine Research Center, NIH (see website at https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/peter-kwong-phd-structural-biology-se...), which seeks to apply structural biology to the development of vaccines against HIV-1 and other human pathogens.