This is an application for a K08 mentored career development award for Dr. Jonathan Li, an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Li is a physician-scientist committed to a career in translational HIV research. He has gathered an experienced team of mentors, collaborators, and advisors and is proposing a comprehensive research, course work, and career development plan that will position him to be a successful independent investigator. The overall goal of Dr. Li's proposed research is to determine the effect of HIV-1 minority variants on the risk of antiretroviral treatment failure and to use minority variant populations to improve our understanding of HIV reservoirs. HIV exists as a diverse cloud of viruses within each infected individual, but current commercial HIV-1 drug resistance tests only take into account mutations present in at least 15-25% of the viral population. However, in a recently published analysis by Dr. Li, minority HIV-1 drug resistance mutations present below the limit of detection of commercial resistance genotyping tests can increase the risk of NNRTI-based therapy failure by more than two-fold. This K08 proposal builds upon these important findings. The main aims are to 1) Determine the prevalence and clinical impact of drug-resistant minority variants within the HIV DNA reservoir;2) Evaluate the effect of minority integrase inhibitor resistance mutations on the risk of treatment failure;and 3) Characterize fluctuations in HIV-1 RNA and DNA population dynamics in patients with chronic, untreated HIV infection. The knowledge gained from these studies could improve our ability to choose the best treatment regimen for each patient and may help guide strategies for eradicating the HIV reservoir.

Public Health Relevance

The proposed projects are focused on low-frequency HIV variants found within the diverse cloud of virus in each patient. Studying these variants may improve our ability to choose the best treatment regimen for each patient and may help guide strategies to eradicate the HIV reservoir.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Type
Clinical Investigator Award (CIA) (K08)
Project #
5K08AI100699-02
Application #
8467678
Study Section
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Research Review Committee (AIDS)
Program Officer
Sharp, Gerald B
Project Start
2012-05-15
Project End
2017-04-30
Budget Start
2013-05-01
Budget End
2014-04-30
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2013
Total Cost
$136,440
Indirect Cost
$9,440
Name
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Department
Type
DUNS #
030811269
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02115
Li, Jonathan Z; Etemad, Behzad; Ahmed, Hayat et al. (2016) The size of the expressed HIV reservoir predicts timing of viral rebound after treatment interruption. AIDS 30:343-53
Kearney, Mary F; Wiegand, Ann; Shao, Wei et al. (2016) Origin of Rebound Plasma HIV Includes Cells with Identical Proviruses That Are Transcriptionally Active before Stopping of Antiretroviral Therapy. J Virol 90:1369-76
Delagrèverie, Héloïse M; Delaugerre, Constance; Lewin, Sharon R et al. (2016) Ongoing Clinical Trials of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Latency-Reversing and Immunomodulatory Agents. Open Forum Infect Dis 3:ofw189
Treasure, Graham C; Aga, Evgenia; Bosch, Ronald J et al. (2016) Brief Report: Relationship Among Viral Load Outcomes in HIV Treatment Interruption Trials. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 72:310-3
Sunshine, Sara; Kirchner, Rory; Amr, Sami S et al. (2016) HIV Integration Site Analysis of Cellular Models of HIV Latency with a Probe-Enriched Next-Generation Sequencing Assay. J Virol 90:4511-4519
Li, Jonathan Z; Smith, Davey M; Mellors, John W (2015) The need for treatment interruption studies and biomarker identification in the search for an HIV cure. AIDS 29:1429-32
Li, Jonathan Z (2014) HIV-1 drug-resistant minority variants: sweating the small stuff. J Infect Dis 209:639-41
Li, Jonathan Z; Chapman, Brad; Charlebois, Patrick et al. (2014) Comparison of illumina and 454 deep sequencing in participants failing raltegravir-based antiretroviral therapy. PLoS One 9:e90485
Buzon, Maria J; Martin-Gayo, Enrique; Pereyra, Florencia et al. (2014) Long-term antiretroviral treatment initiated at primary HIV-1 infection affects the size, composition, and decay kinetics of the reservoir of HIV-1-infected CD4 T cells. J Virol 88:10056-65
Buzon, Maria J; Sun, Hong; Li, Chun et al. (2014) HIV-1 persistence in CD4+ T cells with stem cell-like properties. Nat Med 20:139-42

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