on March 2, 2010
Davide Corti, PhD
Institute for Research in Biomedicine
Nominated by Prof. Robin Weiss
Dr. Davide Corti is currently Director of the Antibody Discovery Unit at Humabs LLC, a spin-out company of the Institute of Research in Biomedicine. Dr. Corti completed his Ph.D. in Antonio Lanzavecchia’s laboratory in December 2007 where he studied the human memory B cell repertoire as an accessible source of all the antibody specificities produced during the lifespan of an individual. The dissection of the memory B cell repertoire was performed using two independent approaches: the first aimed to establish frequency and fine specificity of memory B cells for a variety of human pathogens and their kinetics following infection or vaccination, the second aimed to interrogate the B cell repertoire for the isolation of human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that would be capable of broadly neutralize viral targets, such as SARS-CoV, Influenza A and HIV-1. The isolation of broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies is relevant not only for serotherapy, but also for “analytic vaccinology” where such antibodies are used as probes to identify conserved epitopes that may be properly formulated as vaccines. Dr. Corti’s work in the Weiss CAVD consortium has centered on the isolation of novel monoclonal antibodies that neutralize many strains of HIV-1 from selected patients of the Antwerp and London’s cohorts. Three particularly interesting mAbs (HJ16, HGN194 and HK20) have been mapped to the CD4 binding site, the V3 loop and gp41 HR1, respectively, and characterized within the Weiss-VDC and by the Duke University VIMC. The initial results have recently been published (Corti D et al, 2010, PLoS One).
