According to the WHO, almost a million people die each year of HIV-related causes across the world. Although numbers are falling, most experts agree that a vaccination against HIV will be required to stop the pandemic once and for all. The Holy Grail is a vaccine that induces broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs), which inhibit the majority of circulating HIV strains. Thus far, all efforts to develop such a vaccine have failed. In a recent study we show that the genome of the infecting virus strongly determines how our body immune defences respond to it. Some HIV strains even seem to be able to induce broadly neutralizing antibody responses across individuals - exactly what is needed to develop a successful vaccine