Mechanisms underlying vaccination protocols that may optimally elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies against highly mutable pathogens

Highly mutable pathogens such as HIV and SARS-CoV-2 can pose a major challenge to development of effective vaccines because antibodies that are effective against one strain of the virus may not protect against mutant strains. Antibodies that can protect against diverse strains of a mutable pathogen are known as broadly neutralizing. Through the use of stochastic simulation methods, information theory, and analysis of past experimental data, this paper proposes the theoretical conditions that need to be met in order to optimally induce production of broadly neutralizing antibodies via a prime and boost vaccination protocol. In doing so, we connect the Darwinian process of affinity maturation to statistical learning theory.

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Recommended citation: Ganti, Raman S., and Arup K. Chakraborty. ``Mechanisms underlying vaccination protocols that may optimally elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies against highly mutable pathogens.’’ Physical Review E 103.5 (2021): 052408.