Special Issue "HIV Vaccine Research and Development: Challenges, Advancements, and Opportunities"

Dear Colleagues,

Despite significant advances in antiretroviral therapies, the global HIV/AIDS pandemic remains a major public health challenge, with 38 million people currently living with the virus and 1.7 million people newly infected each year. The extraordinary genetic diversity and rapid mutation rate of the virus are the primary obstacles for a protective HIV vaccine. Accordingly, researchers have focused on structure (including computational) -based vaccine design, which utilizes the detailed knowledge of HIV's molecular structure and the host immune response to develop innovative vaccine candidates.

This Special Issue will collect original research papers and review articles that highlight the challenges, progress, and potential solutions in the quest to create an HIV vaccine, with a focus on structure-based design. Potential topics include:

1. Structure-guided immunogen design approaches, including the development of stabilized Env trimers or scaffolded epitope-focused immunogens and new understandings of the interactions between antigens and antibodies.
2. New insights into the complex interplay between host immunity and HIVs, including the role of T-cell responses in vaccine-induced protection.
3. Emerging technologies and computational approaches that facilitate the rational design of HIV vaccine candidates.

We hope that this collection of articles will inspire further research, collaboration, and innovation in the pursuit of an effective HIV vaccine, contributing to the global effort to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Dr. Sanjay Phogat
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• structure-based vaccine design
• envelope glycoprotein (env)
• broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnabs)
• T-cell responses