Montgomery, Anna
(2024)
The Impact of a Therapeutic HIV-1 Vaccine on HIV-1 Proviral DNA and RNA Transcription in a Phase I Clinical Trial.
Master's Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is an ongoing public health issue. Currently, antiretroviral therapy (ART) is used to treat people living with HIV (PLWH), but the virus persists in latent memory T cells despite viral suppression on ART. Recent therapeutic advances are aimed at finding functional cures of HIV. Alongside therapeutic research, there is a need for the development of quantitative assays to accurately measure the viral reservoir within individuals and evaluate the impact of interventions on reducing the size of the reservoir. In this thesis, I implement an automated nucleic acid extraction method followed by quantitative molecular assays to quantify longitudinal changes in Cell-Associated HIV RNA and DNA (CARD) using samples from a Phase I clinical trial. The results will help determine if study participants responded to vaccination with autologous dendritic cells (DC) that were loaded with or without HIV peptides, directly or through natural processing, compared to unloaded DC. As this is the first usage of the automated CARD system on clinical trial samples, we are also further evaluating its performance characteristics compared to the existing manual CARD assay.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
17 May 2024 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
11 April 2024 |
| Approval Date: |
17 May 2024 |
| Submission Date: |
24 April 2024 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
48 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
School of Public Health > Infectious Diseases and Microbiology |
| Degree: |
MPH - Master of Public Health |
| Thesis Type: |
Master's Thesis |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
HIV-1, Cell-associated HIV-1 DNA, Cell-associated HIV-1 RNA |
| Date Deposited: |
17 May 2024 17:28 |
| Last Modified: |
17 May 2024 17:28 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/46275 |
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