World's fastest supercomputer to create largest HIV evolutionary tree.Byline: ANI Washington, October 28 (ANI): Scientists are using the Roadrunner roadrunner or chaparral cock Either of two species of terrestrial cuckoo, especially Geococcyx californianus (family Cuculidae), of Mexican and southwestern U.S. deserts. About 22 in. supercomputer, which is the world's fastest supercomputer, to analyze vast quantities of genetic sequences from HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. infected people in the hope of zeroing in on possible vaccine target areas. The project is being led by Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (previously known at various times as Site Y, Los Alamos Laboratory, and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National and the international Center for HIV/AIDS HIV/AIDS Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI CHAVI Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (US NIAID) ) consortium. Physicist Tanmoy Bhattacharya and HIV researcher Bette Korber have used samples taken by CHAVI across the globe - from both chronic and acute HIV patients - and created an evolutionary genetic family tree, known as a phylogenetic tree, to look for similarities in the acute versus chronic sequences that may identify areas where vaccines would be most effective. In this study, the evolutionary history of more than 10,000 sequences from more than 400 HIV-infected individuals was compared. The idea, according to Korber, is to identify common features of the transmitted virus, and attempt to create a vaccine that enables recognition the original transmitted virus before the body's immune response causes the virus to react and mutate mu·tate intr. & tr.v. mu·tat·ed, mu·tat·ing, mu·tates To undergo or cause to undergo mutation. [Latin m . "DNA Sequencing technology, however, is currently being revolutionized, and we are at the cusp of being able to obtain more than 100,000 viral sequences from a single person," said Korber. "For this new kind data to be useful, computational advances will have to keep pace with the experimental, and the current study begins to move us into this new era," she added. "The petascale supercomputer gives us the capacity to look for similarities across whole populations of acute patients," said Bhattacharya. "At this scale, we can begin to figure out the relationships between chronic and acute infections using statistics to determine the interconnecting branches - and it is these interconnections where a specially-designed vaccine might be most effective," he added. (ANI) Copyright 2009 Asian News International The Asian News International (ANI) agency provides multimedia news to China and 50 bureaus in India. It covers virtually all of South Asia since its foundation and presently claims, on its official website, to be the leading South Asia-wide news agency. (ANI) - All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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