International Research Core Laboratory

In March 2000 a CFAR International Research Core Laboratory was established at the Stefan S. Nicolau Institute of Virology by the Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative and received financial support from NIH grant no 2P30AI 36211-06 2000-2009: "International Center for AIDS Research“ and Fogarty International Center (FIC) grant no. 1RO3TW 05702-01, 2002-2004; "Pediatric HIV in Romania: A Prognostic Cohort Study“. Together with national funds this helped the Institute develop a broad range of research area:

the follow up of long term survivor HIV parenterally infected children (virological and immunological monitoring to asses the impact of highly efficient antiretroviral therapy (HAART) on the evolution of the HIV infection
evaluation of the correlation between the level of p24 antigen and viral load as independent predictors of the natural HIV evolution and as follow up markers for treatment efficacy
genotyping the HIV isolates from recently infected adults and vertically infected children in order to have an insight in the trend of the epidemic and to investigate the correlation between certain HIV genotypes and primary antiretroviral resistance
study of the prevalence of a 32 bp deletion in the gene coding for the CCR5 HIV coreceptor in infected children as a genetic factor for the selection of long term survivors.
evaluation of HIV-specific immunity (both cellular and humoral) in infected children who were subjects of non-structured interruptions of treatment and investigation of the value of immunotherapeutical approaches in HIV infected children
investigation of the natural history of HBV and/or HCV coinfections in HIV infected children
molecular diagnosis in malignant opportunistic diseases involving EBV, HPV and HHV8 in HIV infected individual