Translational Research
The CFAR Immunology Core supports a large and diverse range of HIV/AIDS studies. Without the CFAR infrastructure, none of these studies could be conducted at UCSF-GIVI:
- Detection of HIV RNA by flow cytometry
- Detection of NK cell phosphorylation by Phosflow
- NK cell degranulation and cytokine expression
- Endothelial Progenitor Cell colony forming assay
- Rare cell flow cytometry for Endothelial Progenitor cells
- FACS sorting of CD4+ T cell subsets from mucosal tissue biopsies and bone marrow aspirates
- Eight new flow cytometry panels for the detection of T cell subsets including Tregs, and senescent T cells
Developmental Research
The Immunology Core’s research activities are focused on developing, optimizing, and validating new immunology assays that will support the needs of the CFAR research community. New assays are developed following interaction with investigators and in response to the CFAR scientific themes. The laboratory continues to develop and introduced new state-of-the-art flow cytometry panels for immunophenotyping including:
- Detection of platelets and Endothelial Microparticles by flow cytometry
- Intracellular detection of TNF from LPS stimulated monocytes
- Phosflow for an increased range of phosphorylated targets
Additional areas of focus include:
- Cryopreservation of mucosal mononuclear cells
- NK cell Phosflow
- Detection of bacterial translocation