Prof. Schommers Receives EACS Research Prize at European AIDS Conference

The award recognizes his paper, "Dynamics and Durability of HIV-1 Neutralization Are Determined by Viral Replication" (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02582-3), which was published in Nature Medicine in 2023. The award ceremony will take place at the European AIDS Conference (EACS 2025) in Paris.

Intensive research into an HIV vaccine has been ongoing for four decades, yet an approved vaccine remains elusive. One of the main reasons for this is the enormous variability of HIV, which makes it difficult to trigger antibodies with broad efficacy against the multitude of circulating virus variants through vaccination. Although passive administration of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) has been shown to prevent infection in studies, there is a lack of data on how long immunization-induced bNAbs would persist in humans. This is precisely where the award-winning study comes in.

The study analyzed samples from more than 2,300 HIV-positive individuals in Germany, Nepal, Tanzania, and Cameroon. Researchers also monitored rare "elite neutralizers" for several years. The results clearly demonstrate that the quantity of viral antigen influences the strength and duration of the neutralization response. For the first time, researchers calculated the half-lives of naturally induced bNAbs in humans - approximately nine to seventeen years with no or low antigen load and about four years after the start of antiretroviral therapy. This scenario closely reflects the expected antigen dynamics after vaccination. Thus, the study demonstrates that bNAb responses triggered by vaccination are likely to confer protection for several years.

“Prof. Schommers' work impressively demonstrates how neutralizing antibodies behave over time. By combining clinical and basic research, he provides crucial insights for HIV vaccine development,” says Prof. Dr. Florian Klein, Director of the Institute of Virology at the University Hospital of Cologne and Executive Board Member of the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC).

The EACS Research Awards are presented every two years in recognition of outstanding scientific work in HIV research that makes a special contribution to bridging the gap between basic science and clinical application. With a prize money of 20,000 euros, it is one of the most highly endowed prizes in HIV research. The prize is supported by the French National Research Agency for HIV, viral hepatitis and emerging infectious diseases (ANRS MIE) in 2025 and was awarded on October 16, 2025, at the European AIDS Conference in Paris.

This message has been modified by the CMMC (K. Heber & D. Grosskopf-Kroiher) and is based on the text by the press and communications team of the University Hospital Cologne (original German version here).