UCLA CFAR CORES

Clinical Investigations

The Clinical Investigations Bank provides basic scientists access to clinical specimens for corroboration of in vivo relevance from in vitro studies, and for testing of new hypotheses. Basic-science investigators are encouraged to submit applications for use of the bank to further their research interests. Ideally, research should emphasize the overall goal of improving understanding of HIV immuno-pathogenesis. The bank is operated for the research interests of the entire UCLA HIV research community and includes:

1. Over 19,000 sera and/or plasma collected from HIV-infected patients in
   long-term follow-up studies. Some of these patients may have up to 11 years of stored sera. There are also sera collected from patients on a variety of studies (i.e., ACTG trials 016, 019, 116, 117, 118, 138, 144 and 175) that represent unique collections of well-characterized long-term studies with specific drug interventions (AZT or ddI) or vaccine trials. The sera may have clinical information available, such as presence or absence of OIs, KS or lymphomas. The catalogue is computerized and linked to clinical data, to facilitate faster retrieval of specimens and matching of patients with controls.
2. A smaller collection of cerebrospinal fluid, to facilitate neurologic
   intervention studies.
3. Fresh Kaposi's sarcoma cell isolates from skin, oral mucosa, conjunctiva,
   pleural and peritoneal fluids, and fresh lymphoma tissues.
4. Isolated and stored RNA and DNA from peripheral blood samples for RNA and DNA PCR.