New Insights Into HIV Virus Help To Understand How It Evades Immune Surveillance
About 36 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses and approximately 38 million people globally are living with HIV.
Dr. Jonathan Cook, a resident physician specializing in medical microbiology at the University of Toronto, is investigating key proteins on the HIV virus that are crucial to developing an effective vaccine.
“These proteins are so interesting because they are necessary for a virus to infect a human,” said Cook. “By blocking their function, we can avert the kinds of infections that you see routinely.”
He and Adree Khondker in the lab of Prof. Jeffrey E. Lee from the Temerty Faculty of Medicine published a paper in Communications Biology that reveals new information on how the HIV virus interacts with immune systems.
Using the CMFC beamline at the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan, the research team analyzed the outer proteins on the HIV virus. They discovered that an area of one protein acts as a decoy — diverting the immune system’s response towards a false target.
