In an effort to speed up HIV vaccine research, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) last week awarded US$15.6 million in grants for research on B-cell immunology.

The five-year awards will go to ten research teams. They come two months after NIAID director Anthony Fauci announced his institute's intention to “turn the knob” in the direction of basic research and discovery (see Nature 452, 503; 2008) after the highly public failure of a T-cell-based HIV vaccine candidate.

“This is the kind of thing we were talking about when we were talking about discovery,” says Fauci, who says that planning for the awards began 14 months ago. B cells make antibodies that neutralize invading viruses, but humans seem unable to mount a response during HIV infection.