The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given Duke a two-year, $3 million grant to uncover genetic variants among hemophiliacs with resistance to HIV.
The study, which will be conducted at the Center for Human Genome Variation at Duke's Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, will employ high throughput sequencing technology to resequence the genomes of 50 hemophiliacs who were exposed to HIV-contaminated blood products but never contracted the virus. Center Director David Goldstein will head the study along with researchers Kevin Shianna and Dr. Jacques Fellay.
Between 1979 and 1984, before there were measures for screening contaminated blood, patients with hemophilia were frequently exposed to HIV-tainted blood. Although 80 percent of the population that received contaminated factor VIII concentrate became infected and died of AIDS, 20 percent never contracted HIV, Shianna said.
By looking at the entire genomes of those individuals-who share a set of well-defined characteristics-Goldstein said it will be easier to identify the traits that confer HIV resistance.
"So you have a population that you know has something special about [its] genetics. And now we have the capacity to look through the entire genome. So it's really a perfect match," he added.
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