MHRP
Samantha Townsley is a Scientist in the B Cell Core, led by Dr. Shelly Krebs, supporting the US Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). She directs the design and implementation of experiments to understand the shifting humoral pathways that result in protective, durable antibodies from natural infection and vaccination strategies by using advanced techniques to phenotype and capture antigen-specific B cells for downstream monoclonal antibody production and characterization. Her major focus is to study the B cell responses that lead to robust, durable, and broadly neutralizing antibody responses, allowing us to understand B cell ontogeny from B cell engagement to individual mAb characteristics such as somatic hypermutation and heavy chain usage. She applies these methods to other pathogens of interest including Zika, yellow fever, and SARS-CoV-2 while continuing efforts to understand B cell changes and antibody production in HIV-1 vaccine and infection cohorts in the presence or absence of antiretroviral treatment (ART). These efforts have yielded sequences of tens of thousands of mAbs against Zika, yellow fever, SARS-CoV-2, and HIV-1 that may have therapeutic potential and will help elucidate the best approach to induce beneficial antibody responses through vaccination strategies. She is also leading efforts to develop a reproducible, optimized MSD assay to detect cross-clade gp140 binding antibodies for phase I clinical trial evaluations. Prior to this role, she completed her postdoctoral research fellowship with Dr. Shelly Krebs after she received her Ph.D in microbiology from the University of Washington.