The available technologies describe specific immunogenic peptides, peptide modifications and methods for identifying additional immunogens against HIV-1 surface proteins, gp120 and gp41. Additionally, detailed methods for use of the described immunogenic peptides in the development of vaccines and diagnostics for HIV-1 are disclosed. The current technologies further include a comprehensive system for immunogen design, comprising in silico design coupled to feedback from X-ray crystallography, antigenic analysis, and immunization.

The described methodology demonstrates how to transplant a given HIV-1 epitope recognized by broadly neutralizing antibodies into an appropriate scaffold, while preserving its structure and antigenicity. Conservation of the three dimensional structure may lead to the generation of antibodies with broadly neutralizing characteristics, similar to the template antibody. Such epitope-transplant scaffolds may serve as valuable diagnostics to identify specific serum reactivity against the target HIV-1 epitopes. The subject scaffolding technology may be applied to any virus for which a broadly neutralizing antibody and its respective epitope has been characterized at the atomic-level.