Office phone: (859)257-4456
Fax: (859)257-8994
Lab phone: (859)257-5553
Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics
Jiayou Zhang, Ph.D. |
Associate Professor |
Doctoral studies: University of Texas, Austin. Postdoctoral: University of Wisconsin-Madison. |
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Office phone: (859)257-4456 |
Selected publications |
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| Research statement: The World Health Organization estimates that there are about 42 million people infected with HIV in the world today, including almost 1 million people in the United States. Therapeutic intervention has remained focused on several anti-viral drugs which have been developed recently. However, these drugs are toxic and are not able to eradicate HIV replication permanently. The goal of our laboratory is to develop an HIV mutant that inhibits the replication of wild-type HIV. Dominant negative mutated HIVs are not only defective viruses in their own replication, but also greatly inhibit the replication of wild-type HIV when both viral types infect the same cell. We have isolated several HIV Gag-Pol mutants. When these mutants were placed in cells infected with wild-type HIV, the replication of wild-type HIV was reduced to less than 10-4. We are constructing a HIV vector which can be used to efficiently deliver those dominant negative mutants into cells. The final goal would be to use this therapy in vivo, so that patients infected with HIV have a better quality of life when compared with current therapies. | |
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