Approximately 38 million people worldwide are infected with HIV and they are 20 times more likely to become ill with tuberculosis (TB) than uninfected individuals. HIV co-infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the etiologic bacterium that causes TB, is the leading cause of death among people living with HIV. In collaboration with the laboratories of Ling […]

Zac has had an exciting semester!  First, he recently published a first author review article in the journal Viruses entitled “Disassembling the Nature of Capsid: Biochemical, Genetic, and Imaging Approaches to Assess HIV-1 Capsid Functions” in which he summarizes the methods used to detect and measure the function of HIV-1 capsid in vitro and in […]

Chandra’s study, featuring Mariana’s MPH thesis work, has been published in the Journal of Virology. Chandra characterized two replication-competent HIV-1 reporter viruses: one encoding the bioluminescent protein nanoluciferase (nLuc) and the other encoding a near-infrared fluorescent protein called iRFP670 (or iRFP). After characterization in human CD4+ T cells, Chandra infected NSG mice engrafted with human […]

Today Emerson defended her MS thesis entitled “Characterization of HIV-1 capsid-binding host proteins during infection.” She did an outstanding job and it is clear she learned so much during her time here, including learning to independently perform confocal microscopy! One of her aims was featured in our recent mBio paper. We will miss you in […]

Mariana successfully defended her MPH thesis, “CG Dinucleotide Codon Removal Improves Expression of HIV-1 Reporter Viruses in Humanized Mice,” in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology in the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health! She worked hard to get great data while finishing a heavy graduate course load and her practicum as […]

Zhou’s paper is in press at the journal mBio. He developed highly inclined and laminated optical sheet (HILO) live-cell microscopy to track HIV-1 and host protein complexes. Here is an example of one of his movies, showing red virus particles moving along white microtubules in a cell:   Using live-cell imaging and virology techniques, Zhou […]

Doug’s co-first author paper in collaboration with Juan Perilla (University of Delaware), Itay Rousso (Ben-Gurion University of Negev, Israel), and others was published in PLoS Biology this week. This collaborative study provides a novel mechanism for metabolites in HIV-1 capsid stabilization, nucleotide import, and reverse transcription. HIV-1 capsid has been described as semipermeable and regulates […]

Zhou successfully defended his PhD thesis in the Program in Microbiology and Immunology (PMI) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine today! His thesis was titled “Cytoplasmic CPSF6 and CypA modulate HIV-1 trafficking,” which has led to 1 first author publication in the Journal of Virology (in which his image was selected for the […]

Our lab received one of the 17 pilot grants awarded by the University of Pittsburgh Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) on basic SARS-CoV-2 research. SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, currently a pandemic affecting people around the globe. Dr. Doug Fischer will be leading the project to understand how the virus replicates in […]

Women aged 15-24 years account for 20% of the 1.7 million new HIV-1 infections annually around the world. That means every week nearly 6,000 young women become infected with HIV-1. As there is no vaccine for HIV-1, the CDC and WHO recommend daily, oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP) for individuals who are at high risk […]