Wilton B. Williams, PhD, associate professor in surgery and co-director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) Training and Mentoring Program (DTMP), was awarded the R37 meritorious award on June 3, 2024, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Williams received the award for his work on understanding the mechanisms of early-life immunity in neonatal populations that provide a permissive environment for the development of effective antibodies against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
A method to extend research in time (MERIT) award is a five-year award given to an outstanding investigator and is based on superior competence and productivity. At the expiration of a MERIT award, the investigator is then eligible for a MERIT extension award based on progress in the first five years and the proposed studies for the next five years, giving the investigator a total of ten years of support and the distinction of being an NIAID MERIT awardee.
Williams’ research has been focused on filling a gap in our knowledge of B cell development in early-life that prevents us from implementing the full potential of pediatric HIV-1 vaccines. Previous studies have postulated that infants and children living with HIV develop HIV-1 envelope (Env)-reactive broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) that can target multiple different circulating HIV strains with a higher frequency and faster kinetics than adults, but the mechanisms of pediatric bNAb induction are not fully defined. Williams recently established a neonatal Simian-HIV (SHIV) infection model in infant rhesus macaques (RMs) that displayed properties that mimicked human HIV infection in infants and children and also demonstrated preferential induction of heterologous HIV NAbs with characteristics of bNAbs in infant compared to adult RMs in agreement with historic data comparing human infants and adults living with HIV. Thus, he now has an appropriate RM model to evaluate the mechanisms of heterologous HIV-1 neutralizing antibody (NAb) induction that may inform broadly neutralizing antibody (bNAb) induction in pediatric populations. For this innovative research in an understudied area that also received a highly competitive fundable score following peer review, Williams received a MERIT award.