Tommy DeStefanis, a student in the Integrated Biomedical Sciences (IBS) PhD program in the George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), has earned a predoctoral fellowship award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
DeStefanis received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service (F31) Award under the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for his research project, “Evaluating the ability of receptor binding site antibody combinations to restrict HIV escape.”
His first-submission F31 application received an exceptional impact score of 13 and was in the 2nd percentile of grants reviewed.
DeStefanis, a microbiology and immunology PhD candidate in the lab of Rebecca Lynch, PhD, associate professor of microbiology, immunology, and tropical medicine, is studying HIV antibody escape and viral genetics with a focus on improving broadly neutralizing antibody (bNAb) therapies to help achieve an HIV cure.
Through his F31 project, DeStefanis said he was “looking to leverage what we’ve learned from antiretroviral therapies to improve broadly neutralizing antibody strategies to make viral resistance more difficult.”
While bNAbs are a promising immunotherapy for HIV-1, resistance mutations remain a limiting factor to their success. He proposes that “two bNAbs together, which both target the critical virus receptor binding site, will better delay or prevent [bNAb] resistance.”
DeStefanis said that his experience in the BMSC 8219 class “Writing the Grant-Style Qualifier,” led by Senior Associate Dean of Research Alison Hall, PhD, and the IBS grant-style qualifier exam process significantly aided in developing the framework of his application. He enjoyed the creative development of his proposed project alongside his mentor Lynch, gathering different perspectives from fellow researchers, and receiving helpful feedback from his lab.
Prior to receiving his F31, DeStefanis was a 2024–25 trainee in GW’s HIV Persistence, Comorbidities, and Treatment Training Program (HIVPeCoT-TP), led by IBS Director Alberto Bosque, PhD, MBA, associate professor of microbiology, immunology, and tropical medicine, and Sanjay Maggirwar, PhD, MBA, chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine, and Bicentennial Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Discovery Science, which is funded by an NIAID/NIH T32 grant. DeStefanis also recently earned fourth place among IBS students at GW SMHS Research Showcase on April 29, 2026, for his poster presentation “In Vivo Escape Pathways to VRC07-523LS and VRC01LS and Their Effects on CD4bs bNAb Susceptibility.”
