Eric Lewitus, PhD
My research interests have centered on developing statistical models of HIV-1 sequence evolution towards the design of vaccine immunogens. This work has included analysis of the adaptive response of viruses following vaccine-breakthrough infection, the interplay between viral evolution and the development of neutralization breadth, and trends in global HIV-1 subtype diversity. Our work showed that the development of neutralization breadth can be driven by infections established by multiple founder variants, which led to the development of a software tool for designing immunogens that mimic multiple founder-like HIV infection. Additional work on the evolutionary dynamics of coronaviruses assessed the prospects for a broad-coverage vaccine to protect against future zoonoses. My current work focuses on B and T cell-based HIV-1 immunogen design to target circulating viral diversity in specific geographic regions.
Post-doc: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, DE
Post-doc: École Normale Supérieure (CNRS), Paris, FR
| Lewitus E, Li Y, Pham P, Rolland, M. HIV-1 Gag, Pol, and Env diversified with limited adaptation since the 1980s. mBio 2024 Feb 8:e01749-23. doi::10.1128/mbio.01749-23. |
| Lewitus E, Bai H, Rolland M. Design of a pan-betacoronavirus vaccine candidate through a phylogenetically-informed approach. Science Advances 2023 9(3): eabq4149. |
| Lewitus E, Hoang J, Li Y, Bai H, Rolland M. Optimal sequence-based design for multi-antigen HIV-1 vaccines using minimally distant antigens. PLoS Computational Biology 2022 8(10): e1010624 |
| Lewitus E, Townsley S.M., Li Y., Donofrio G.C., Dearlove B.L., Bai H., Sanders-Buell E., O’Sullivan A.M., Bose M., Kibuuka H., Maganga L., Nitayaphan S., Sawe F.K., Eller L.A., Michael N.L., Polonis V., Ake J.A., Vasan S., Robb M.L., Tovanabutra S., Krebs S.J., Rolland M. HIV-1 infections with multiple founders associate with the development of neutralization breadth. PLoS Pathogens 2022 18(3): e1010369. |
Area of Research
Institution Affiliations
Scientist III, Viral Genomics Section & Systems Serology Core, in support of the WRAIR U.S. Military HIV Research Program (MHRP)