This proposal describes the facilities and services to be provided by the Viral Immunology Core of the NYU CFAR. The primary purpose of this Core is a) Provision of a range of assays to measure the function and characteristics of various cells involved in immune defense against HIV, the function of cells affected by HIV infection, and, the HLA type of cells (when this information is needed to perform various cellular assays); b) Testing of polyclonal sera as well as human, primate and rodent anti-HIV monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for anti-HIV activity, for neutralizing activity against a wide range of HIV primary isolates, and for their ability to bind to intact virions and to infected cells; c) Virus isolation and characterization so that these viruses can be used in the aforementioned immunologic assays; d) Construction and production of pseudoviruses for use in the aforementioned assays; e) Provision of human anti-HIV mAbs to CFAR investigators and AIDS researchers around the world; f) Sequencing of Ig and T cell receptor genes for studies of gene usage in immune responses in the setting of HIV infection; and g) Provision of training to investigators, students, postdocs, international fellows, Infectious Disease fellows, and technicians, within and outside of CFAR, in the techniques enumerated above. The services of this core are available to the NYU AIDS research community, to NYU researchers in other fields (such as members of the NYU Cancer Center), to NIH supported researchers outside of NYU, and to those scientists around the world who need mAbs for meritorious HIV-related projects. A charge-back system is in place and contributes to the support of the services provided.
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