The Einstein/MMC CFAR Virology Core provides essential and highly used services to CFAR investigators that supply the infrastructure, resources, assays and techniques that permit Einstein/MMC CFAR basic and clinical investigators to investigate different aspects of HIV-1 replication in vitro and in vivo. This greatly facilitates their research efforts by allowing them to quickly and efficiently perform experiments that they could not otherwise do. For investigators who have experience in handling HIV-1, the BSLS/Virology core provides a dedicated BSL3 facility that contains 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 have experience culturing HIV-1, the BSL3/Virology Core trains them in the various techniques and protocols required to safely handle and reliably culture HIV-1. Regular workshops are presented to teach investigators techniques for the measurement of p24 antigen by ELISA, co-culture of HIV-1 from 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. For clinical investigators, the core provides up-to-date, clinically relevant virological assays such as the quantification of plasma HIV-1 RNA and HCV RNA, isolation and phenotypic analysis of HIV, and isolation and storage of PBMC, plasma and/or serum from study patients. The Core also provides support for a wide range of molecular biology techniques including custom vector and plasmid design and construction, DNA sub-cloning and amplification, site-directed mutagenesis, large-scale expression of recombinant HIV, human or other pathogen proteins, siRNA interference construct design, and the heteroduplex mobility assay.
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