Influenza A virus (IAV) remains a major human pathogen due to its remarkable ability to evade neutralizing antibodies and thwart vaccination. Due to intense efforts over the past 80 years to deal more effectively with influenza, IAV is among the best-characterized viruses, catalyzing countless discoveries in nearly every aspect of basic biomedical research. I will discuss our recent studies to understand flu evolution in host and immune adaptation and how we have used flu to begin to glean the general rules of antibody immunodominance to complex immunogens.
Supported by DIR, NIAID