What is the cellular tropism of HIV? Does it change during the course of an infection? Which cellular receptors confer the preference for infection of certain cell-types? What effect does the choice of host cell have on the pathogenesis of HIV?
HIV has been the most extensively studied and researched virus in history. Part of the knowledge you should attain from this course is a thorough understanding of the basics of HIV infection, pathogenesis and treatment. To this end, I have come up with a series of questions/topics which should help you, along with the text reading, develop a basic knowledge foundation for HIV. Each student should become an expert on one of the questions/topics and then post a PowerPoint or Jing presentation (preferred) explaining the topic to the rest of the class. After posting your essay/presentation you should then ask one question of one of your classmates.
Objectives
• You should develop an understanding of the features of HIV that enable it to be such a massive global health problem and is difficult to treat both pharmacologically and prevent with a vaccine.
• You should understand the role of the major viral accessory proteins in an infection such as Vif, VPR, VPU, Nef and REV.
• You should be able to describe the modes of transmission of HIV (sexual contact, IV drug use...etc) and which are most common in various parts of the world.
• You should understand the course of an HIV infection including the features of the acute, asymptomatic and symptomatic phases and the status of the immune system at each phase.
• You should be able to explain why HIV-infected individuals are more susceptible to opportunistic infections.
• You should be able to enumerate the cells that HIV infects and how it causes immune dysfunction.