NIH supports UC Merced professor’s work in inhibiting HIV infection

Biochemistry professor Patricia LiWang calls it a stroke of luck that she has become enmeshed in HIV research, but her developments are no accident.

The National Institute for Health apparently agrees, awarding her more than $2.3 million over the next four years to continue working toward a new method of preventing HIV from infecting humans.

The developments coming from LiWang’s lab and her collaboration with three other universities could have global implications in the war against HIV and AIDS.

LiWang studies chemokines, signaling proteins that are secreted by cells. On their own they are HIV inhibitors, preventing the virus from binding itself to cells.

“But the natural ones in our bodies aren’t so great at it,” she said. “So we started working on the biochemistry to make them better.”

LiWang, with the School of Natural Sciences, thought there must be a way to improve the chemokines’ natural abilities through biochemistry, and began making several variants. She also started working on another inhibitor called griffithsin.

But the big question when working with proteins is how to make them into medicine that can be used by people. They can’t be swallowed or the stomach would digest them, she said.

That’s when she got the idea to partner with a bioengineer at Tufts University in Massachusetts who designed a silk-protein film that could carry the HIV inhibitors to places in the human body that are most likely to be invaded by HIV – the reproductive and digestive tracts.

HIV preventatives have been tested in the forms of pills, gels and creams, and have been introduced in places like eastern and southern Africa, where HIV and AIDS are still at epidemic proportions.

However, refrigeration there is a challenge and the creams and gels aren’t popular with at-risk populations, so getting people there to use the inhibitors regularly has proved to be a problem. Gels and creams are messy and must be used every time someone engages in sexual activity that could transmit the virus.

LiWang’s team has come up with a different delivery system – an easy-to-use, filmy suppository that melts with body moisture and is stable for months, even when temperatures exceed 120 degrees. The team is working on making the inhibitor time-released, too, so people could use it biweekly or monthly, making it more likely they would use it at all.

Researchers delve into Valley fever from all angles

Before it infects humans who breathe it in, the fungus that causes Valley fever changes shapes in the environment. Once infected, some people fight it off while others die.

If scientists can determine how that shape-shift happens, they might be able to stop it, said professor Clarissa Nobile, one of a large, interdisciplinary team at UC Merced working to tackle the Valley fever challenge from every imaginable angle.

If researchers can figure out why people react differently to the fungus, it could lead to better treatments, professor David Ojcius said.

Scientists know the fungus is distributed through dust, but if they can monitor levels in real time, they can build a warning system, professor Wei-Chun Chin said.

And if researchers can determine where at-risk groups get information, they can create social marketing campaigns that make sure that what people are hearing is accurate, visiting professor Carol Sipan said.

These four researchers have expertise in microbiology, immunology, bioengineering and public health. They’re part of the UC Merced team working toward better treatments and perhaps a vaccine for what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls a “silent epidemic.”

“We’re the glue that pulls this whole thing together,” said professor Paul Brown, director of UC Merced’s Health Sciences Research Institute.

The glue began to gel about a year after the institute was established. That’s when faculty members from all three of UC Merced’s schools came together to attack this potentially debilitating, but poorly understood, illness endemic to the San Joaquin Valley.

“We haven’t really had a research university in the region that could do this, that could pull it all together. We do now,” Brown said.

Read more of this story in the fall issue of UC Merced Magazine: http://bit.ly/1DJay9N.

This story was originally published November 25, 2014 at 5:30 PM with the headline "NIH supports UC Merced professor’s work in inhibiting HIV infection."