2010 UCSD - AMGEN Scholars Program

The main targets of HIV infection are CD4 T cells, and consequently their cell numbers decline with increasing viral load, causing weakened immunity. Previous studies have demonstrated that the level of activated CD8 T cells co-expressing CD38 in the peripheral blood is highly correlated with HIV load and is predictive of progression of infection to AIDS. Although activation of infected CD4 T cells is necessary for HIV to replicate, the level of activated peripheral CD4 T cells has not been significantly linked with disease prognosis. This discrepancy may be the result of prior methods of T cell phenotype analyses. A T cell phenotype data set obtained from staining and flow cytometric measurement of blood samples taken sequentially from patients during acute or early HIV infection will be utilized in our investigation of this question. Statistical correlations are being performed between viral load variations over time and expression of the cell activation markers CD38 and HLA-DR in different subsets of maturation (naïve, memory, effector) of both CD4 and CD8 T cells.