A joint clinical research center in Thailand: role in HIV vaccine development.

In 1992 the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences, Bangkok, Thailand, collaborated with the Phramongkutklao Army Medical Center to set up the Joint Clinical Research Center (JCRC). The purpose of the Center is to conduct clinical research in support of HIV vaccine development and testing. To date, eight HIV vaccine-related research protocols have been conducted at the JCRC, involving 1,668 volunteers.

Heterosexually acquired CRF01_AE/B recombinant HIV type 1 found in Thailand.

CRF01_AE and subtype B are circulating in Thailand and the strains have become intermixed in some high-risk groups, establishing the possibility of intersubtype recombination. The first such recombinant, mostly B with gp120 from CRF01_AE, was recently identified. Here we report a heterosexually acquired recombinant of different structure, with most of the genome from CRF01_AE but almost the entire envelope from subtype B.

HIV viral load in Thai men and women with subtype E infections.

The assessment of potential "breakthrough infections" in HIV vaccine trials requires knowledge of viral load in unvaccinated persons. Therefore, HIV-1 RNA was quantitated in plasma from Thai adults with subtype E infections. RNA was detectable (> or =500 copies/ml) in 93% of 255 specimens, with a mean (standard deviation) value of 4.

Detection and quantification of HIV type 1 RNA in nasopharyngeal washes from HIV-infected subjects.

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV) RNA load was measured in paired samples of peripheral blood plasma and nasopharyngeal (NP) washes from 97 Thai subjects infected with subtype E or B. HIV RNA was quantifiable in 93% of peripheral blood plasma samples tested and was inversely correlated (rho =-0.524; p < 0.

Diversity of envelope glycoprotein from human immunodeficiency virus type 1 of recent seroconverters in Thailand.

The envelope-coding sequence of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) was determined for 11 Thai seroconverters between 1995 and 1996. On the basis of the env sequences, all subjects were infected with HIV subtype E. Compared with the interpatient protein diversity among HIV-1 Thai reference sequences from 1990 to 1992 (4.