News
I moved!
After working almost 5 years at University of Washington in the laboratory of Dr. James Mullins studying HIV, I moved to Tucson, AZ to attend grad school at the University of Arizona.
After working almost 5 years at University of Washington in the laboratory of Dr. James Mullins studying HIV, I moved to Tucson, AZ to attend grad school at the University of Arizona.
I was involved in a study recently published in Science. The editors wrote the following summary of the article:
A not-so-random integration for HIV
Even in the face of a cocktail of antiretroviral drugs, HIV manages to hang on. It does so by integrating its own genome into those of host cells, where it persists in a latent state. To better understand this process, Wagner et al. determined the sites where HIV integrated into three HIV-infected patients treated with antiretroviral drugs for more than a decade. They found an over-representation of sites where HIV integrated into genes associated with cancer and cell proliferation. Also, multiple cells in the same individual harbored the same integration sites. This suggests that integration into specific genes may drive cell proliferation and viral persistence.
A not-so-random integration for HIV
Even in the face of a cocktail of antiretroviral drugs, HIV manages to hang on. It does so by integrating its own genome into those of host cells, where it persists in a latent state. To better understand this process, Wagner et al. determined the sites where HIV integrated into three HIV-infected patients treated with antiretroviral drugs for more than a decade. They found an over-representation of sites where HIV integrated into genes associated with cancer and cell proliferation. Also, multiple cells in the same individual harbored the same integration sites. This suggests that integration into specific genes may drive cell proliferation and viral persistence.
The Nature article I was a co-author on was featured in the News section:
http://www.nature.com/news/vaccine-trial-reveals-chinks-in-hiv-s-armour-1.11380
This article examined phylogenetic and molecular characteristics of the virus that infected subjects enrolled in the RV144 HIV vaccine trial. This was the first vaccine trial ever to show modest protection against HIV infection. This article was a step in understanding how the vaccine might have worked and also why it only had limited success.
http://www.nature.com/news/vaccine-trial-reveals-chinks-in-hiv-s-armour-1.11380
This article examined phylogenetic and molecular characteristics of the virus that infected subjects enrolled in the RV144 HIV vaccine trial. This was the first vaccine trial ever to show modest protection against HIV infection. This article was a step in understanding how the vaccine might have worked and also why it only had limited success.