Cancer Biology
IHV cancer research has historically focused on viral oncology, with an emphasis on the pathobiology of HIV/AIDS, its relation to increased risk for malignant disease, mechanisms explaining this relationship and approaches to prevention. More recently, faculty members in the Basic Science Division have expanded their studies to non-HIV viral oncology, bacterial oncology, dysregulation of apoptosis, and tumor metastasis.
Drug Discovery & Development
A key emphasis of research in the Division of Infectious Agents and Cancer is the translation of fundamental research to future clinical applications employing the tools of protein, glycoprotein and peptide engineering, including:
- peptide synthesis using both natural and non-natural amino acids
- directed evolution using phage display, mirror-image phage display and yeast display
- vaccine subunit design using recombinant protein technologies
- structure-based rational design
Immunity & Inflammation
IHV researchers conduct fundamental studies on immunity and immune evasion, including acute and chronic human pathogens. They identify the mechanisms for pathogen induction of inflammation and its impacts on chronic viral diseases including HIV and HCV.
There exists a critical emphasis on immune checkpoint regulators and their roles in viral immune evasion, as well as immunological studies as part of the HIV Cure strategy including relationships between immune regulation and viral latency or long-term consequences of viral-induced inflammation for comorbidities of HIV.
An additional research emphasis lies in cytokine signaling and chronic inflammatory diseases.
Microbial Pathogenesis
IHV was founded, in part, on an exceptional history of HIV research, a strength that continues to this day. Over the last nearly two decades, pathogenesis research in the Division of Infectious Agents and Cancer has expanded to encompass a variety of microbes, including:
- Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria
- Mycoplasma
- Histoplasma
- HTLV-1
- respiratory viruses
- hepatitis viruses
- hemorrhagic fever viruses
Clinical samples and animal models, as well as genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic profiling are used to characterize diseased and healthy states.
Structural Biology & Molecular Biophysics
Taking advantage of IHV’s longstanding expertise in analyzing proteins, peptides and their interactions quantitatively and at atomic level resolution, IHV investigators in the Division of Infectious Agents and Cancer have extensive expertise in protein and peptide structure determination by:
- X-ray
- crystallography
- nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
- circular dichroism (CD)
This is also determined as
- molecular interaction analysis by surface plasmon resonance (SPR)
- isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC)
- fluorescence polarization (FP)
- fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)
- analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC)
These studies are critical to defining the molecular bases of pathogenesis and to rationalizing therapeutic development for the entire spectrum of diseases on which IHV researchers work.