IGF::OT::IGF THE MICROVOA: ENHANCING THE VIRAL OUTGROWTH ASSAY (VOA) WITH MICROTECHNOLOGY

Salus Discovery, Llc, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

One of the most significant hurdles to overcome in evaluating strategies to cure HIV infection is the lack of a simple method for quantifying changes in the size of the latent reservoir of replication-competent HIV in resting CD4+ memory T cells in individuals on highly effective antiretroviral therapy. Most of the HIV DNA in these cells represents defective virus; less than 0.01% of highly purified resting CD4 cells harbor replication-competent provirus. As a result, PCR-based methods tend to over-estimate the size of the reservoir and do not correlate with the number of cells producing functional virus in a viral outgrowth assay. However, viral outgrowth assays are labor-intensive and require large volumes of blood. The goal of this project is to design a high-throughput assay platform that can be used to reproducibly quantify changes in the size of the replication-competent latent HIV reservoir in resting CD4+ memory T cells isolated from individuals on highly effective antiretroviral therapy.