Dr. Montefiori is Professor and Director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development in the Department of Surgery, Division of Surgical Sciences, Duke University Medical Center. His major research interests are viral immunology and AIDS vaccine development, with a special emphasis on neutralizing antibodies. One of his highest priorities is to identify immunogens that generate broadly cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies for inclusion in HIV vaccines. Many aspects of the neutralizing antibody response are studied in his laboratory, including mechanisms of neutralization and escape, epitope diversity among genetic subtypes and geographic origins, ontogeny of broadly neutralizing antibody responses and computationally-assisted vaccine design. Over the years he has explored multiple types of assays for neutralizing antibodies and other potential antiviral antibodies, focusing on assay optimization, standardization, validation and high throughput. The scope of research covers HIV-infected individuals and nonhuman primate models of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) and simian-human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) infection.
