This article originally appeared on UCLA Newsroom and is written by Enrique Rivero. For the full article, click here.
The virus that causes AIDS is known to hide in certain rare cells. When people with HIV stop taking their medications, the virus can re-emerge and multiply, or “rebound,” from those hiding places. To better combat HIV, scientists have been working to understand how and why the virus re-emerges.
“It’s the resurrection of virus that you couldn’t see in the body before,” said Jerome Zack, professor of medicine and chair of the UCLA department of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Zack, who is director of the UCLA Center for AIDS Research, and colleagues recently received a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases called “Defining Factors Controlling HIV Rebound.” The five-year, $7.7 million program will involve three projects.
The projects will investigate factors that accelerate and prevent the re-emergence of HIV, and whether that rebound can be controlled by strengthening the immune system either genetically or by vaccine. The three studies will use mice to track the virus’s development and effects….