Neutralizing antibodies to hiv-1 and their use

An isolated human monoclonal antibody comprising a heavy chain comprising a heavy chain variable region comprising a complementarity determining region (HCDR) 1, a HCDR2 and a HCDR3, and a light chain comprising a light chain variable region comprising a complementarity determining region (LCDR) 1, a LCDR2 and a LCDR3,

• wherein the antibody specifically binds to an epitope on the surface of gp120;
• wherein the HCDR2 forms a hydrogen bond with the b15 loop of gp120 when the antibody is specifically bound to gp120;
• wherein the heavy chain variable region has an orientation relative to gp120 when the antibody is specifically bound to gp120, and wherein the orientation differs by less than 5 degrees from the orientation of the VRC01 heavy chain variable region when the VRC01 antibody is specifically bound to gp120 as shown in Protein Data Bank (PDB) accession number 3NGB;
• and
• wherein the antibody is neutralizing.