Utilizing multiscale imaging in the rhesus macaque model to study reservoir formation and rebound

Speaker: Dr Tom Hope, Northwestern University

Host: Professor Michael Malim

Cocktails of highly effective antiviral compounds can control viremia reducing the virus in the blood to levels undetectable by most assays. However, interrupting antiretroviral treatment leads to a rapid rebound in most cases. To gain insights into this process in rhesus macaques we utilized PET/CT and correlative fluorescence microscopy to define viral shutdown after initialling antiretroviral treatment and rebound after stopping therapy. There are surprises around every corner.

Speaker biography:

Thomas J. Hope, PhD, Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Feinberg School of Medicine and in Biomedical Engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Northwestern University. 

Dr Hope received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Immunology, where he studied Molecular Immunology under Dr H. Sakano. He completed his postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco where he studied the HIV Rev protein.

Dr Hope’s laboratory has been a pioneer the use of cell biology approaches to study HIV providing images and movies of HIV interacting with cells and tissues.  For the past 25 years, his research has focused on HIV Cellular Virology.  More recently, this focus has expanded to HIV related mucosal immunology, HIV transmission, and HIV prevention science.

His work has been published over the past three decades in respected journals such as Science, PNAS, The Journal of Cell Biology, Cell Host and Microbes, Journal of Virology, and PLoS Pathogens. Dr Hope is also the Editor-in-Chief of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses and a Section Editor for PLoS Pathogens. Dr Hope is a widely respected speaker and gives talks about his innovative work on AIDS/HIV at many institutions and conferences, nationally and internationally.