Novel HIV inhibitors targeting the interaction between integrase and LEDGF/p75 KU Leuven
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The replication cycle of HIV is a complicated interplay between viral and cellular proteins. Until now antiretroviral therapy mainly targets the viral proteins although the interaction between the viral and cellular proteins could be interesting new drug targets. This strategy is mainly of interest because cellular proteins are much less prone to mutations which gives the virus less opportunity to develop drug resistance. My laboratory has ...
Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for viral infectious diseases needs to target both the infected cell and the pathogen to break the replication cycle. We have recently conceptualized a technology termed Hybrid CAR, where the cell transduced to express anti-HIV chimeric receptor simultaneously secretes potent, broadly neutralizing antibodies capable of deactivating HIV and mediating Fc receptor functions. Here we propose to ...
In this proposal, we aim to design lipid nanoparticles coated with anti-CD4 nanobodies that encode CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoproteins targeting both ends of the HIV genome and the viral coreceptor CCR5. As such, our novel nanomedicine will selectively purge HIV reservoirs in CD4+ cells, while conferring healthy CD4+ cells resistant to HIV reinfection, and off-target effects in non-target cells will remain minimal.
The HIV Nef protein is an important pathogenesis factor in the development of AIDS. In this study we want to further investigate the role of this protein in viral replication (viral fitness) in immune cells and transmissions of the virus between different immune cells such as dendritic cells and T cells in in vitro assays.
A fluorescence activated cell sorter (FACS) is a basic laboratory equipment in current state of the art biomedical laboratories. At Ghent University it is currently not possible to perform flowcytometric cell sorting on biological samples with a level 3 biosafety class (HIV, HBV, HCV etcetera). The availability of a FACS device in the L3 laboratory would prove a significant upgrade of this lab and would substantially increase the ...
Chemokines and their receptors are central players in several diseases and are consequently recognised as interesting therapeutic targets. The chemokine receptor CXCR4 was initially discovered as a coreceptor facilitating HIV entry in human target cells. Additionally, growing evidence supports the crucial role of CXCR4 and its cognate ligand CXCL12 in tumor progression, stem and progenitor cell mobility and inflammatory and autoimmune ...