The Impact of T Cell Immunity on HIV-1 Diversity

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Despite intensive research there is still no effective HIV vaccine. There has been a recent international call to suspend clinical vaccine trials and to concentrate on the underlying molecular biology that determines how and why a vaccine might succeed. This project aims to address these fundamental issues.HIV has the ability to adapt to its environment in a manner unprecedented in any other organism. This is reflected by the rapid development of resistance to antiviral drugs and by the development of mutations that camouflage the virus from the immune system. This project will demonstrate how, in a population of newly infected HIV positive individuals, the virus that has been transmitted will adapt to a key component of the immune system of the new host and simultaneously revert many of the mutations acquired during infection of the previous host. As patients progress to AIDS we hope to show how the immune system is no longer able to exert any selection pressure on the virus.We will explore the key components of our immune system to see whether adaptation to one may be disadvantageous to others. If so, the impact of viral evolution on the efficacy of our immune system may be more significant than realised.