Pink, Green, and the Cure to HIV

Arun, Neha

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/114198 Copy

Description

Title

Pink, Green, and the Cure to HIV

Author(s)

Arun, Neha

Contributor(s)

Kieffer, Collin

Issue Date

2022

Keyword(s)

Molecular and Cellular Biology

Abstract

Upon first glance, it's an abstract scattering of colorful blobs across a dark background, which reveal some hints of pink and green following closer inspection. Enticing hints of color that my eyes have been begging to detect over the past six months. This is an image of fluorescently stained cells that are expressing the HIV provirus. In Dr. Collin Kieffer's lab since my freshman year, I have investigated HIV, the causative agent of the AIDS epidemic, which is responsible for 38 million current infections and 36 million total deaths worldwide. My current project seeks to understand aspects of the HIV life cycle during infection, to define how the virus operates in a state of producing virus (active) vs. dormant integration (latent), and advance towards a cure. This image captures my first successful experiment, demonstrating efficient latency reactivation and virus production in a majority of cells, as represented by the fluorescent pink and green. Though it took half a year of failed experiments and dead ends, this image of triumph represents a step towards evaluating next-generation HIV drugs to combat the latent reservoir, which remains the greatest current roadblock to an HIV cure.

Type of Resource

• Text
• Image

Language

eng

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/114198

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Neha Arun

Owning Collections