Brander, Christian – ICREA Memoir 2021

Christian Brander

Institut de Recerca de la Sida - IrsiCaixa

Life & Medical Sciences

Christian Brander obtained his PhD in Immunology from the University of Bern and completed his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School focusing on T cell immunity to HIV. He joined ICREA in 2008 with an appointment at the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute. He is a co-inventor of the HIV "HTI" immunogen, which is developed clinically by Aelix Therapeutics Inc. where he is a co-founder and CSO. He serves as a curator of the Los Alamos HIV Database and is an Associate Professor at the University of Vic.

Research interests

Our group aims to understand the cellular immunity to viral infections. Using complementary sets of immune analyses and integrated -omics approaches, we seek to identify functional correlates of virus control and to explore their underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms. We combine cellular assays and methylome, communicome and transcriptomics analyses to assess to what degree and at what stages of different viral infections the effector function profiles of virus-specific T cells are epigenetically controlled. We also pay special attention to the effect of viral infections on neurological function.

Selected publications

– Moltó J, Rosás-Umbert M, Miranda C, Manzardo C, Puertas MC, Ruiz-Riol M, López M, Miró JM, Martinez-Picado J, Clotet B, Brander C, Mothe B, Valle M. 2021, ‘Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic analysis of romidepsin used as an HIV latency reversing agent.’ J Antimicrob Chemother, 76, 4, 1032 – 1040.

– Olvera A, Cedero S, Llano A, Mothe B, Sanchez J, Arsequell G & Brander C 2021, ‘Does Antigen Glycosylation Impact the HIV-Specific T Cell Immunity?’, Frontiers In Immunology, 11, 573928.

– Goncalves E, Guillen Y, Lama JR, Sanchez J, Brander C, Paredes R & Combadiere B 2021, ‘Host Transcriptome and Microbiota Signatures Prior to Immunization Profile Vaccine Humoral Responsiveness’, Frontiers In Immunology, 12, 657162.

– Yang H, Llano A, Cedeno S, von Delft A, Corcuera A, Gillespie GM, Knox A, Leneghan DB, Frater J, Stohr W, Fidler S, Mothe B, Mak J, Brander C, Ternette N & Dorrell L 2021, ‘Incoming HIV virion-derived Gag Spacer Peptide 2 (p1) is a target of effective CD8(+) T cell antiviral responses’, Cell Reports, 35, 6, 109103.

– Méndez-Lagares G, Chin N, Chang WLW, Lee J, Rosás-Umbert M, Kieu HT, Merriam D, Lu W, Kim S, Adamson L, Brander C, Luciw PA, Barry PA, Hartigan-O’Connor DJ 2021. ‘Cytomegalovirus mediates expansion of IL-15-responsive innate-memory cells with SIV killing function’. J Clin Invest. 131(15):e148542.

Selected research activities

Our group has been centrally involved in the recently reported AELIX-002 clinical trial on therapeutic HIV vaccination that showed the clinically most significant results to date that vaccine-induced T cell immunity critically contribute to the control of viral replication and helped maintain HIV infected individuals off antiretroviral treatment for more than 1,5 years. We have identified virological and immunological corrleates of virus control, which will further help to drive the clinical development of the HTI immunogen that was spun out from IrsiCaixa to AELIX Therapeutics in 2016.