The Einstein/MMC CFAR Virology Core provides essential and highly used services to CFARinvestigators that supply the infrastructure, resources, assays and techniques that permitEinstein/MMC CFAR basic and clinical investigators to investigate different aspects of HIV-1replication in vitro and in vivo. This greatly facilitates their research efforts by allowing them toquickly and efficiently perform experiments that they could not otherwise do. For investigators whohave experience in handling HIV-1, the BSLS/Virology core provides a dedicated BSL3 facility thatcontains the essential equipment for culturing HIV-1 under the appropriate biosafety conditions.For investigators whose research program requires them to culture HIV-1 but who do not haveexperience culturing HIV-1, the BSL3/Virology Core trains them in the various techniques andprotocols required to safely handle and reliably culture HIV-1. Regular workshops are presented toteach investigators techniques for the measurement of p24 antigen by ELISA, co-culture of HIV-1from PBMCs, performance of HIV-1 fusion assays using luciferase reporter pseudotyped HIV-1,measurement of plasma HIV-1 RNA levels, and determining viral titers using reporter cell lines. Forclinical investigators, the core provides up-to-date, clinically relevant virological assays such as thequantification of plasma HIV-1 RNA and HCV RNA, isolation and phenotypic analysis of HIV, andisolation and storage of PBMC, plasma and/or serum from study patients. The Core also providessupport for a wide range of molecular biology techniques including custom vector and plasmiddesign and construction, DNA sub-cloning and amplification, site-directed mutagenesis, large-scaleexpression of recombinant HIV, human or other pathogen proteins, siRNA interference constructdesign, and the heteroduplex mobility assay.
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