BIOL398-01/S10:Class Journal Week 7

Kristoffer Chin

1. The purpose of this week's assignment was to continue with the HIV project by moving to HIV structures. We have already completed HIV evolution by understanding the sequences and how they affect the virus. It was now time to translate these sequences into amino acids and protein structure. From there, we would be bale to understand more about HIV and how it works in humans.
2. From this assignment, I learned that even though there was a great amount of diversity and divergence found in rapid progressors, there is still a possibility of finding similarities in the structures of HIV. Obviously the nucleotide sequence would be different, but the structures may be similar in properties and function. It gave me a better understanding of those that are researching HIV because they are trying to figure out ways to stop it through the DNA/RNA level and the protein level. I would not be surprised if there are other ways to approach this disease. It is also quite interesting that there is much more to learn about a single virus despite its size.
3. I now understand a little more about why HIV vaccines are currently ineffective. I am wondering if thought if there are any big news in HIV research lately and if there is an estimate of time of when a cure can be found and if it is possible that even though if the vaccine is found, will immunogenicity of it be high or low?

[BIOL398-01/S10:Week 7]

[Kristoffer Chin: Week 7] --Kristoffer T. Chin 19:21, 7 March 2010 (EST)

Salomon Garcia

1. The purpose of this assignment was to continue in our study of the HIV virus but this time we are to approach it b looking at its particular structures. And in order to begin in the understanding of the structure we are to begin by looking at our particular paper which in our case was the "Recurring conformation of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gp120 V3 loop"

Alex George

1. This assignment's purpose was to further learn how to present a scientific paper to a community. We are taking notes on vocabulary in addition to the paper in order to fully understand the article. This assignment is the first Journal Club assignment of our own, so we are given the freedom to find what works best.
2. What I learned from the paper was the variability of conformations within the V3 loop could offer explanations for the pathogenicity of HIV. There a certain regions that remain constant throughout different genes that suggest their crucial role in determining relative shape. Also, I realized there a number of ways to approach a disease in terms of trying to find a cure. Distinguishing its function on the protein level is just another approach. Finally, I learned the difficulty of picking apart a biochemical scientific paper.
3. I understand the assignment well enough, but understanding the paper has been a little bit more challenging. It has become difficult to grow accustom to the terms (such as Fab 59.2 and Aib). Also, the results displayed a lot of numbers and angles that I couldn't really grasp. Overall, though, I am slowly getting the gist of the paper.

Alex J. George 16:47, 7 March 2010 (EST)

KP Ramirez

1. The purpose of this assignment was to continue our Journal clubs as well as undertaking an entire journal club ourselves. This would be the first time that we would be assigned a paper and asked to read through and prepare a presentation based on our findings. There were three papers and our team was assigned the first one.
2. This assignment was jumping head first into beginning to understand the structure of HIV. It was very different from earlier papers that looked at how the virus progressed as now we had to understand the conformational changes as well as how things linked together. Our paper focussed on gp120 and several other parts involved in the process. I also learned more about working on a journal club with a team.
3. There were actually several things I did not yet understand about this assignment. There are many aspects of the structure of HIV that are confusing to me, such as the Chemokine receptor sites.

KP Ramirez 1:21 March 7 2010

Individual week 7

Ryan Willhite

1. What was the purpose of this assignment? The purpose of the assignment was to proceed with journal club for week 7. The topic is the structure of Gp120 protein and other aspects of HIV that are being investigated in order to intervene in either the contraction of this virus and/or treatment of the virus. Organizing our thoughts, we were able to devise a powerpoint presentation to best describe the knowledge we have acquired from reading the article.
2. What did I learn from this assignment (head, hands, heart)? I learned that HIV is so complex in finding the one answer to solve the problem. There is so much that goes into tackling viral infections and other diseases. Mainly, a lot of research, even on structure because it truly brings insight as to the characteristics of the virus.
3. What did I not understand (yet) about this assignment? There was nothing I did not understand about the assignment. It was pretty straight forward.

Ryan N. Willhite 20:33, 7 March 2010 (EST)

• Week 7 Assignment Page

• Week 7 Journal