Publication at Faculty of Science |
2013
Abstract
To involve students in thinking about the problem of AIDS (which is important in the view of non-decreasing infection rates) we established a practical lab using a simplified method of Thomas (2004) to determine the polymorphism of HIV co-receptor CCR5 from students' own epithelial cells. CCR5 is a receptor involved in inflammatory processes, which has been misused by some pathogens, including HIV, to enter host cells.
As a result, a defective allele CCR5-Δ32 has been enriched in some populations. Due to the interesting story and hands-on work with their own tissue students were absorbed by this 2 hour practical.