News and Activities

Great work, everybody, and congratulations to Wang, Kumar, Harry and Yang on the acceptance of their two invited chapters, Chapters 7 and 8, in the Methods in Enzymology volume titled Bioorthogonal Tagging. Both chapters are now in production.
We are thrilled and pround to contribute to this highly respected book series, which has long served as a foundational resource for researchers by highlighting influential methodologies and emerging advances across biochemistry, molecular biology, and related fields. Being part of this volume is both professionally meaningful and an exciting opportunity to support the continued advancement of the field. (May 7, 2026).
The 51st Annual CSHL Retroviruses Meeting 2026 is approaching! This year, Maolin will deliver a talk and Revan will present a poster at the meeting. Congratulations to Revan on this exciting opportunity and recognition.

The meeting will take place May 18 to 23, 2026, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, bringing together leading scientists in retrovirology and related fields from around the world.
BIG Congratulations to
Wang, Revan, Junyu, and Kumar on receiving travel awards from the Duke Center for HIV Structural Biology (DCHSB) to attend the 2026 Center-wide Annual Meeting, to be held May 28 to 29, 2026.
We will all travel to Duke University for this exciting opportunity to share our lab’s latest research and engage with researchers and collaborators in the HIV-1 communities. Our group will contribute both oral and poster presentations at the meeting and we look forward to exchanging ideas with leading scientists in the field, and strenghthing our collaborations.
Congratulations to Kumar on receiving a travel award from American Society for Virology (ASV) for the 45th ASV Annual Meeting, which will be held July 27 to 30, 2026, in Minneapolis. Kumar will also give a flash talk at the meeting, an outstanding recognition of his work. Congratulations as well to Wang on being selected to present a poster at the meeting. We are excited to see our group represented at this premier international virology conference and look forward to sharing our research with the broader scientific community.
Congratulations to Harry on successfully defending his MS thesis on April 14, 2026! Way to go!
BIG congratulations to Wang, Kumar, Junyu, Yufan, Revan, and our collaborators at Columbia University, UTHealth at Houston, and Duke University for this outstanding collaborative work. Our first reviewed preprint has just been published in eLife (April 17, 2026), and we are excited to share that it received very positive reviews and comments.
In this study, we demonstrated how broadly neutralizing antibodies target HIV-1 Env to achieve viral neutralization through long range allosteric remodeling of Env conformations on virions. This work provides new mechanistic insight into antibody mediated neutralization and HIV-1 Env dynamics. Check it out! "Distinct allosteric remodeling of HIV-1 Env dynamics on virions by gp41-directed antibodies reveals two modes of neutralization."

eLife Assessment
"This manuscript reports an important study in which the authors apply smFRET imaging to probe HIV-1 Env conformational dynamics in the presence of antibodies. Previous implementations of smFRET imaging of HIV-1 Env, which focus on gp120 conformation, have yielded limited information on antibodies that target gp41. Through the cutting-edge application of smFRET imaging, the study provides convincing insights into the mechanisms of action of relevant antibodies."
Congratulations to Wang and Revan for publishing a timely, long, comprehensive review article on RSV vaccine development, entitled "RSV vaccine development: advances and fusion protein-focused strategies" in Frontiers in Immunology on Feb 24 2026. This review begins with RSV molecular virology, summarizes the evolution of prophylactic antibody, and revisits lessons from past vaccine failures. It then emphasizes the current landscape of RSV vaccine development, categorizing platforms such as mRNA, protein subunit, virus-like particle/nanoparticle, live-attenuated, and viral vector approaches, highlighting both licensed vaccines and leading candidates under clinical evaluation. (It reads really well now)
Congratulations to Kumar, Harry, Wang, and Revan for publishing a comprehensive review on anti-viral peptide inhibitors. Everybody learns a lot from this reading, writing, and summarizing process. The review article "Structure-Guided Design of Peptide Inhibitors Targeting Class I Viral Fusion Proteins" has been officially published in Pathogens in Jan 2026.
Congratulations to Wang and Kumar. "Protocol for click labeling of HIV-1 envelope on amber-free virions prepared using genetic code expansion," has been published in STAR Protocols.
Maolin presented at the ASV 2025 annual meeting, Montreal, CA.
Congratulations to Kumar on winning the Best Thesis Writing Award!
Our lab will be actively participating in the CSHL Retroviruses 50th Annual Meeting, taking place May 19–24, 2025, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY. Wang will deliver a talk presentation, Revan will present a poster, and Maolin will serve as co-chair for the entry session.
Congratulations to Kumar on successfully defending his MS thesis on April 17, 2025!
Congratulations to Revan and Wang! The work, "Conformational trajectory of the HIV-1 fusion peptide during CD4-induced envelope opening," led by our collaborators at Duke, with Revan and Wang as 2nd and 3rd authors, has been published in Nature Communications (2025). A fantastic achievement and we are proud to be part of this collaboration. Many thanks to Wang and Revan for the coffee.
Exciting news! 🎉 A huge congratulations to Kumar on receiving an offer for admission to the inaugural class of the IBMS PhD program at UTT SOM for Fall 2025!

A heartfelt thank you to Kumar for trusting us and staying with us as he embarks on this exciting, challenging, and remarkable PhD journey. We are honored to be part of it and look forward to the years ahead!

In March 2025, Maolin delivered two invited talks as a special invited speaker, first at the UCLA-UCI CFAR Symposium 2025 in Palm Springs, CA, and then at the Duke SAB meeting in Durham, NC.
Congratulations to Revan, Wang, Yang, and Xinyu on their research article, "Inter-protomer opening cooperativity of envelope trimers positively correlates with HIV-1 entry stoichiometry," published in mBio, 2025, ahead of print, Read the full article here: Link to the article.
Congratulations to Revan and Yang on their contributions to the collaborative study with NIH/NIAID and Columbia University, "HIV-1 Envelope Trimer Transitions from Prefusion-Closed to CD4-Bound Open Conformations Through an Occluded Intermediate State," published in the Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal! Read the full article here: Link to the article.
Congratulations to Wang and Yang on their publication, "Multi-step Shapeshifting of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Spikes During Fusion," in Structure!
Check out the special research collection at Frontiers in Immunology entitled "Viral Surface Spikes: Host Cell Entry, Immune Responses and Evasion, and Implications for Viral Infection, Inhibition and Rebound."Now, it is open for submission.
This research topic, developed in alignment with the objectives of the Duke Center for HIV Structural Biology (DCHSB), has been expanded to include a diverse range of viral pathogens and host systems. We invite submissions of Original Research, Reviews, and Mini-Reviews on the following topics:
i) Molecular mechanism of viral spike-mediated host cell entry and immune evasion, ii) Innate and adaptive immune responses to viral surface spike glycoproteins, iii) Structure-based vaccine design and antibody therapies targeting viral spike proteins, iv) Antigenic profiling of spike proteins and strategies to block viral infection and rebound, v)Mechanisms of action for anti-spike antibodies, peptide inhibitors, and small molecules, and vi) Spike protein-mediated virus-to-cell fusion and cell-to-cell transmission.
Congratulations to Wang Xu on receiving the Duke Center for HIV Structural Biology (DCHSB) Trainee Travel Award for presenting our laboratory's research work at the 28th West Coast Retrovirus Meeting (WCRM), held from October 3-5, 2024! Wishing him great success in his oral presentation at the meeting!
Congratulations to our lab on receiving an R01 for $2.2 million from the National Institutes of Health - View Press Release
Congratulations to Dr. Lu on receiving an R35 MIRA grant for $1.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. She is the first at UT Tyler to receive this award. - View Press Release
In the news: $1.8 million grant awarded to UT Tyler School of Medicine junior researcher
In the news: UT Tyler School of Medicine junior researcher awarded $1.8 million grant - Tyler Morning Telegraph
Congratulations to Dr. Lu on being one of two 2022 - 2023 DCHSB CDA recipients.
Congratulations to Dr. Lu on being one of the award recipients of Gilead Research Scholars in HIV
On June 1st, 2021, Dr. Lu embarked on a new chapter of her career path as an independent PI at UTHSCT and received the amfAR Mathilde Krim Award - Phase II on June 2nd, 2021!