Clinical Core

临床核心的主要目的是建立和维护急性丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）组织库。更好地了解HCV感染的自发恢复对于改善预防和治疗慢性感染的方法是必要的。一个主要的限制是很少认识到人类的急性感染。我们通过每月跟踪HCV感染风险人群克服了这一障碍。通过筛查HCV感染和对急性感染者的仔细监测，我们建立了一个急性感染库，免疫学家已经使用该库来提高我们对急性丙型肝炎的认识。在这一竞争性更新中，临床活动集中在临床核心中，其目的是招募和 监测HCV抗体阴性的年轻注射吸毒者，在发生急性感染时进行临床表征，建立和维护急性感染储存库，并将资源分配给NIH资助的研究人员。通过实现这些目标，临床核心将为我们对丙型肝炎康复的理解做出重大贡献，并实现RFA-AI-04-028的许多目标。

The chief purpose of the Clinical Core is to establish and maintain an acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) tissue repository. Better understanding of spontaneous recovery of HCV infection is necessary to improve methods to prevent and treat chronic infection. A major limitation is the rare recognition of acute infection in humans. We have overcome this obstacle by following persons at risk for HCV infection monthly. By screening for HCV infection and careful monitoring of acutely infected persons, we have established an acute infection repository that has already been used by immunologists to advance our understanding of acute hepatitis C. In this competing renewal, the clinical activities are focused in a Clinical Core whose aims are to recruit and monitor HCV antibody negative young injection drug users, to clinically characterize acute infection when it occurs, and to establish and maintain an acute infection repository and distribute the resources to NIH funded investigators. By accomplishing these aims, the Clinical Core will make a major contribution to our understanding of hepatitis C recovery and achieve many of the objectives of RFA-AI-04-028.