Speaker

Dr Madhuri Thakar

Scientist G

Immunology and Serology division,

ICMR-National AIDS Research Institute, Pune (India)

Speaker’s Biography

Dr Madhuri has been involved in virology research for than 30 years with special interest in HIV.  Her projects include characterising the immune response in HIV and quality control in HIV laboratories. She is a recipient of ICMR Excellent Research Output Award (2006-2009) and Fogarty scholarship for training in mucosal studies at Medical school, New Hampshire, USA (2008).  Throughout her career, she has completed 11 research projects in Virology and published more than 100 papers.

Lecture Abstract

CD4+ T lymphocytes are being used for understanding the immune deficiency in the individuals infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The HIV infects preferentially the CD4+ T cells and destroys them making the immune system deficient to mount the optimum response against various infections. Although the HIV load in the plasma of the infected individuals is used to monitor the disease progression in HIV infection, the CD4+ T cell counts are still important to assess the risk of opportunistic infections and also to monitor the effectiveness of the antiretroviral treatment (ART). The CD4+ T cells can be measured in peripheral blood in the laboratory using various techniques such as flow cytometry. To get reliable and reproducible results the laboratory need to follow quality control measures. Following of the quality control rules gives confidence to the laboratories and their clients about the accuracy of the results. This lecture will discuss the use of CD4 count for monitoring the HIV disease and also the measures to be taken by the laboratories to provide accurate and reliable results.