A Cornell University researcher has received a prestigious grant to pursue a new approach to developing a vaccine against hepatitis C, a disease that affects an estimated 70 million people worldwide and can cause severe liver damage.
Andrew Flyak, an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology in Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine, was named a 2026 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. The honor includes a four-year, $300,000 grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to support research into how the human immune system naturally defeats the virus in some patients.
While effective treatments for hepatitis C exist, researchers say a vaccine remains critical because many infected individuals are unaware they carry the virus and can continue spreading it. Flyak’s research focuses on understanding why about 25% of infected people are able to clear the virus without antiviral medication.
“The immune system can clear the virus but we don’t know how to instruct it to do so reliably,” Flyak said. “The goal is to understand what those individuals’ immune systems are doing, and then replicate it through rational design.”
The hepatitis C virus has long challenged vaccine developers because of a flexible surface protein that constantly changes shape, making it difficult for the immune system to target. Flyak and his team believe a specific class of naturally occurring antibodies may hold the key to overcoming that obstacle.
Researchers have found that people who spontaneously clear hepatitis C often produce antibodies encoded by a gene known as VH1-69. Flyak’s team believes those antibodies possess their own structural flexibility, allowing them to adapt to the virus’s changing shape and neutralize it more effectively.
The grant will support the use of advanced research tools including electron microscopy, X-ray crystallography and molecular simulations to better understand how those antibodies function. The team also plans to use generative artificial intelligence to help design potential vaccine candidates.
Flyak said the research could have implications beyond hepatitis C. If successful, the approach may provide a framework for designing vaccines against other highly variable diseases and even certain cancer-related proteins.
Flyak joined Cornell University in 2022 after completing postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in Ukraine and his doctorate from Vanderbilt University.
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