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Hyaluronic Acid is a Negative Regulator of Mucosal Fibroblast-Mediated Enhancement of HIV Infection
2020.11.25 |
| Date | Thu 03 Dec |
| Time | 14:00 — 16:00 |
| Location | Online via Zoom |
Thursday 3 December at 14:00, Johanne Hovgaard Egedal defends her PhD dissertation entitled "Hyaluronic Acid is a Negative Regulator of Mucosal Fibroblast-Mediated Enhancement of HIV Infection".
Despite the development of effective treatment of HIV, nearly 40 million people still suffer from the disease with its following consequences and stigmatization. With no cure available , it is cruial to continue research in the field, in order to understand the mechanisms of transmission and infection for the pandemic to come to an end. Therefore, this PhD project was conducted with the aim of studying mucosal HIV transmission and elucidating how infection is initially established, with the goal of contributing to how infection can be prevented. We investigated how cells of the mucosal tissue and components of the mucosal stroma play a role in HIV transmission. We found that mucosal fibroblasts in fact increase the HIV infection of CD4+ T cells, and that this enhancement was even further augmented by depletion of hyaluronic acid on the fibroblasts. Such knowledge of how mucosal fibroblasts aid the transmission of HIV and how the compostition of the mucosa affect fibroblast-mediated enhancement of HIV could be very important for future work in finding a vaccine or a way to prevent HIV infection.
The summary is written by the PhD student.
The defence is public and takes place online via Zoom (https://aarhusuniversity.zoom.us/j/61303642878). Please read the attached press release for more information.
PhD student Johanne Hovgaard Egedal
Mail: jhe@biomed.au.dk
Phone: (+45) 28152945