HIV AND SUBSTANCES OF ABUSE LABORATORY CORE

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The goal of this component is to establish a core laboratory with the needed human and physical resources to support research studies in the areas of HIV/AIDS and substances of abuse. For the next five years, specialized facilities will be made available to researchers for scientific studies in fields of immunology, drugs of abuse, HIV/AIDS and related infectious diseases. An in vitro system will be developed to test for the effect of addiction-related drugs and their interaction on HIV replication and the immune response under controlled laboratory conditions. The core lab will provide researchers with assays for nucleic acids detection, virus genotyping, flow-cytometric phenotyping, lymphocyte proliferation, cytotoxic and non-cytotoxic activity, cytokine and chemokine determinations, and drugs of abuse quantification. Consultants and mentors will continue to be available to users for the effective development of their projects and foster collaboration with external researchers. Moreover, support is requested to improve specimen repository, laboratory information system, electronic communication with Data Core, and compliance with HIPAA and IRB regulations. Furthermore, an institutionalizing effort of RCMI-supported infrastructure is described.