Mechanisms of HIV binding, uptake, trafficking and infection in dendritic cells

Funded Activity Summary

HIV is the fourth greatest killing disease in the world. Currently there are more than 40 million people infected with the virus and it is spreading through Asia, especially India and China. The priorities are vaccines and new antiviral strategies to complement the existing ones and provide alternatives in the event of toxicity and viral resistance to existing drugs. HIV infects three types of body cells, CD4 lymphocytes, macrophages and dendritic cells. Dendritic cells are the key cells which normally act as sentinels at the surfaces of the body picking up microbes digesting them and transferring their products to lymph nodes where the immune response is stimulated. HIV uses this pathway to enter the body and particularly to enter CD4 lymphocytes and lymph nodes and undergo explosive replication. This project is aimed at identifying new proteins which the virus uses to bind to these cells and also the pathways which the virus uses within the cells to be transferred to CD4 lymphocytes. Such knowledge should allow the design of new antiviral strategies and may also assist in developing HIV vaccines.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2004

End Date: 01-01-2004

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $144,250.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Medical Virology

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

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Other Keywords

Antiviral drugs | C-type lectins | Endosomes | HIV, dendritic cell | HIV/AIDS | Infectious Diseases | Langerhan's cells | Lysosomes | Vaccines

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