Immunology
Professor Tomas Hanke's research aims to develop a universal HIV-1 vaccine, which targets most global virus variants including escape mutants. He strives to maintain a balance between basic and translational research. He oversees a busy pre-clinical programme encompassing HIV-1 epitope discovery and dynamics using mass spectrometry and T-cell assays, studies on immunodominance, depth (number of variants) of epitope recognition and the inportance of perfect vaccine-virus epitope matching for effective effector functions. He explores novel vaccine modalities and optimize their immunogenicity in heterelogous prime-boost regimens in mice and macaques. He co-ordinates a clinical programme assessing candidate HIV vaccines in humans in UK, Europe and Africa.