Grant: Doctoral Research Award - PA: Biomedical/Clinical HIV/AIDS Research

Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1) is a deadly pathogen that affects many people globally. According to the World Health Organization, 33.3 million people around the world were living with HIV, with 2.6 million new infections and 1.8 million deaths in 2009 alone. An effective vaccine for HIV is one of the most important needs for global health today. Despite two decades of intense study and research, there is still no such vaccine. To develop an effective vaccine against HIV-1 it is important to understand the natural protective immunity against the virus. Since HIV-1 depends on the host for survival and not everyone infected by HIV-1 will develop AIDS, understanding of the immune response that can control viral infection could help in developing a vaccine. One way to characterize the protective immune response is to study host and virus interactions. These host-viral interactions are indicated by the positive selection mutations in the virus which allow it to escape host immune responses. By characterizing these mutations we can identify the vulnerable regions of HIV-1 that are targeted by the host immune system. My PhD research project focuses on identifying and characterizing the positive selection mutations in Nef, one of the accessory proteins of HIV-1. It is part of a large comprehensive study to characterize protective immune response against HIV and it will help advance our understanding of protection against it. Further, my research project will promote the development of a novel vaccine to combat HIV-1 infection.