News
March 2023
On March 8, 2023, Dr. Jiang’s abstract entitled “Epigenetic regulation of a persistent HIV reservoir in human brain myeloid cells despite durable ART” was accepted by NIDA Genetics and Epigenetics Cross-Cutting Research Team Meeting, which will be held on May 16-17, 2023 in the NIH main campus.
February 2023
On February 27, 2023, Dr. Tang delivered a wonderful talk of HIV CNS reservoirs in the 2023 CFAR series of webinar entitled “Brain microglia are a persistent HIV reservoir despite durable antiretroviral therapy”. Congratulations to Dr. Tang.
On February 24, 2023, our undergraduate student Eduardo de la Parra Polina won the prestigious RISE Germany Scholarship for his summer research training in Germany. This Scholarship will cover his international travel costs, health insurance and all costs for the RISE Germany meeting. He will work in a research lab with a study on HTLV-1 pathogenesis. Congratulations to Ed!
On February 19-23, 2023, our graduate student Ms. Gabriela Prates attended the annual CROI meeting in Seattle, with a poster presentation entitled “Innate immunity in HTLV-1 infection: IFN-alpha levels are upregulated in the early HAM”.
On February 17, 2023, Dr. Jiang gave a talk to overview the HIV reservoir studies in his laboratory in ID Division.
On February 16, 2023, Dr. Jiang is invited for a talk (zoom) in the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center at UC-San Diego. The title is “Definitive evidence of a persistent HIV reservoir in human brain myeloid cells despite ART”. We discussed our recent findings of HIV reservoirs in the human brain.
January 2023
On January 27, 2023, the Jiang lab’s presentation on HIV CNS reservoir in the Tenth International Workshop on HIV Persistence During Therapy is highlighted by the Scientific Committee in the upcoming issue of Journal of Virus Eradication (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jve.2023.100315.). Congrats to Dr. Tang!
On January 23, 2023, Ms. Emily Sang joined the Jiang lab for her undergraduate training. Emily is a freshman student at UNC, planning to be majored in Biostatistics. Welcome Emily!
December 2022
On Dec 19, 2022, Ms. Gabriela Prates joined the Jiang lab for her graduate studies in UNC-Chapel Hill. Gabriela is a PhD student in the Institute of Tropical Medicine at the University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil. She will work on HTLV and HIV pathogenesis in the Jiang lab, which is supported by FAPESP from Brazil. Welcome Gabriela!
On Dec 13-16 , 2022, the Jiang lab presented brain microglia reservoir and decrotonylation work in the Annual HIV Persistence During Therapy Workshop at Miami, USA.
On Dec 2, 2022, our paper entitled “Depletion of HIV reservoir by activation of ISR signaling in the resting CD4+ T cells” is accepted by iScience. We found that latent HIV evolves to suppress the host ISR/ATF4 signaling pathway to achieve its quiescent and stable infection in resting CD4+ T cells, which is a new target for HIV cure. Congratulations to Dajiang!
November 2022
On November 28, 2022, Dr. Theresa Simermeyer is selected to have an oral presentation in the upcoming HIV Persistence During Therapy workshop in Miami. Congratulations to Theresa!
On November 17, 2022, Dr. Theresa Simermeyer is awarded with a NIAID travel scholarship for the upcoming HIV Persistence During Therapy workshop in Miami. Congratulations to Theresa!
On November 15, 2022, the Jiang lab presented the work in CARE weekly meeting.
On November 15, 2022, Dr. Theresa Simermeyer presented her work in the weekly department Seminar at BCBP.
On November 4, 2022, Dr. Theresa Simermeyer’s abstract entitled “Histone decrotonylation uniquely regulates HIV-1 transcription and can be modulated to control HIV-1 latency” was accepted by in the annual meeting of HIV Persistence During Therapy in Miami.
On November 3, 2022, Dr. Jiang presented his work entitled “Histone decrotonylation and HIV latency” in Carolina Chromatin Consortium (C3) in UNC-Chapel Hill.
October 2022
On October 25, 2022, our abstract “Definitive evidence of a persistent HIV reservoir in human brain myeloid cells despite ART” is accepted for oral presentation in the annual meeting of HIV Persistence During Therapy in Miami.
September 2022
On September 29, 2022, Brendon L. Brown joined the Jiang lab. Brendon is an undergraduate student majored in Chemistry, with a minor in Health and Society. Welcome Brendon!
On August 29, 2022, our paper entitled “Lessons for Understanding Central Nervous System HIV Reservoirs from The Last Gift Program” was accepted for publication in Current HIV/AIDS Reports. This invited review article was collaborated with UCSD team to thoroughly discuss the “Last gift” cohort program in our understanding of HIV CNS reservoirs in PLWH.
On August 25, 2022, Jiayi starts her BIOL395 class in the Jiang Lab. She will help us measure CNS HIV reservoir in cellular and tissue levels.
On August 05, 2022, our Abstract on the role of crotonylation in HIV transcription and latency was accepted by 2022 Chromatin Control of Viral Infection Workshop, which will be held at NIH on Sept 8-9, 2022. Dr. Jiang also received a travel award from this workshop.
On July 15, 2022, our prospective article was published in Neural Regeneration Research. This is an invited review article, summarizing the current view of HIV reservoirs in brain microglia and possible therapeutics of CNS HIV cure.
On June 20, 2022, our epigenetic study continued to be funded by Qura Therapeutics. We aim to investigate epigenetic regulation of HIV transcription/latency and develop specific small molecules for the study of HIV cure.
On June 16, 2022, our paper entitled “Silk Fibers Assisted Long-term 3D Culture of Human Primary Urinary Stem Cells via Inhibition of Senescence-Associated Genes: Potential Use in the Assessment of Chronic Mitochondrial Toxicity” was published in Materials Today Advances. This was the 2nd paper collaborated with Dr. Yuanyuan Zhang at Wake Forest University to develop a novel 3D model of cell culture for drug development.
On June 16, 2022, Mr. Smaran Sivashankar joined Jiang lab as a pre-college student volunteer for his summer training. Welcome Smaran!
On June 2-3, 2022. Jiang lab presented studies in the CARE Annual Meeting in Chapel Hill, NC USA. The titles were: “A direct role of histone crotonylationin the regulation of HIV transcription” and “Defining and targeting HIV reservoirs in the CNS”. Two related posters were also presented by Drs. Theresa L. Simermeyer and Yuyang Tang.
On May 19, 2022. Dr. Jiang was invited for a talk in “XIV Seminar of Retrovirus Research” in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Title: “HIV reservoirs and the strategies to cure HIV”.
On May 11, 2022, our paper entitled “3D Spheroids of Human Primary Urine-Derived Stem Cells in the Assessment of Drug-Induced Mitochondrial Toxicity” was published in Pharmaceutics. This was collaborated with Dr. Yuanyuan Zhang at Wake Forest University to develop a novel 3D model of cell culture for drug development.
On April 14, 2022, Daniel Zhong received the UNC Summer Research Award for his continued research training in Jiang lab. Daniel will be working on the studies to address HIV CNS reservoirs and help develop other CNS reservoir models. Congratulations to Daniel and thank Lilly for her assistance of the application!
On Feb 25, 2022, Jiang lab invited Dr. Wenhui Hu to have a presentation in our weekly UNC ID Division seminar, which entitled “Target-specific Delivery of CRISPR/Cas Genome Editors to Fight Virus Infection”.
On Feb 18, 2022, our paper entitled “Microglia-specific promoter activities of human HexB gene” was accepted by Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. This study was a collaboration with Dr. Wenhui Hu’s group at Temple University to develop microglia specific HIV gene targeting by CRISPR/Cas9 editing. Congrats to Lilly and our co-authors!
On Jan 28, 2022, our paper titled “HIV latency reversal via the induction of EGR1 to bypass PKC agonist-associated immune activation” is accepted by Frontiers in Microbiology. This work extends our efforts to develop latency reversal agents of PKC agonists while bypassing its PKC/cNF-κB signaling pathway to avoid immune activation. Congrats to Lilly and our co-authors!
On Jan 25, 2022, Dr. Jiang received the 2022 ASBMB Early Career Faculty Travel Award to present his work at the 2022 ASBMB Annual Meeting (April 2-5, 2022).
On Jan 24, 2022, Jiang lab abstract titled “Crotonate sensitizes IAPi in the disruption of latent HIV by modulating the ncNF-kB signaling pathway at the step of p100 into p52” was selected for presentation at 2022 ASBMB Annual Meeting (April 2-5, 2022).
Eman Williams and Jiayi Du joined Jiang lab as undergraduate research volunteers. Welcome Eman and Jiayi!
Dr. Jiang assisted with MD/PhD student recruitment at UNC School of Medicine.
On Dec 15, 2021, our paper entitled “Crotonylation sensitizes IAPi-induced disruption of latent HIV by enhancing p100 cleavage into p52” is accepted by iScience. Congrats to Dr. Li and all the co-authors.
On Nov 12, 2021, Dr. Jiang received 2022 UNC CFAR Microgrant Award to support his study on gene editing strategy in the microglia directly derived from brains of PLWH. The preliminary data collected from this study will be useful for the application of NIH funding in the future.
Starting Nov 09, 2021, Dr. Jiang will serve on the admissions committee for UNC Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP). The committee discusses the scores of applicants and chooses potential candidates for interviews.
On Oct 26, 2021, our manuscript entitled “A Plausible Link of TMPRSS2/ACE2/AR Signaling to Male Mortality during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States” has been published in the Special Issue of COVID-19 in the journal of “Pathogens”. This study reflected our efforts in understanding the gender disparities related to COVID-19 infection and death. Thank you, Lilly, for your great work!
On Oct 15, 2021, Dr. Jiang hosted a lecture in MCRO 630 entitled “The Basics of Retroviral/Lentiviral Replication”.
On Oct 13-14, 2021, Jiang Lab was invited to present their work entitled “HIV reservoirs in the central nervous system” in the symposia of “Macrophage Infection by HIV: Implications for Pathogenesis and Cure” hosted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard.
On Oct 6, 2021, our book chapter entitled “Clinical Eradication of Latent HIV Reservoirs: Where are we now?” was published in the Frontiers in Clinical Drug Research: HIV. ISBN: 978-981-14-6443-0. The Editor of this book is Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman in the University of Cambridge. Congrats to Lilly for her hard work!
On Sept. 20, 2021, Dr. Theresa L. Simermeyer joined Jiang Lab as a postdoc research associate. Dr. Simermeyer received her PhD from Wake Forest University early Sept. 2021, working on the signaling pathway of SAMHD1 during DNA repair. SAMHD1 is also an HIV latency related protein in resting CD4+ T cells. Welcome Dr. Simermeyer!
On Sept 16-17, Jiang lab presented his research plans in the kick-off meeting of the CARE Program in the upcoming years.
On August 23, 2021, Dr. Tang received her COVID-19 Supplemental Funding from UNC to support our scRNA-seq analysis of CNS cells isolated from animal or human brains. Congrats to Dr. Tang!
On August 16, 2021, Mr. Eduardo de la Parra Polina joined Jiang lab for his continued training after his summer SMART research. Welcome Ed!
On August 16, 2021, Ms. Skyler Noble joined our lab for her research training. Welcome Skyler!
Starting July, 2021, Dr. Jiang will serve as a First-Year Group faculty mentor for the 2021-2022 BBSP graduate student class. FYG faculty are responsible for the conduct of research and presentations on BBSP student rotations.
On July 6, 2021, NIMH funded our collaboration RO1. Congrats to our UCSD team! Hopefully, exciting discoveries will be uncovered from both R21 and RO1 funding with the “Last Gift” cohort.
On June 16, 2021, Jiang Lab received a R21 grant from NIMH entitled “Defining replication competent HIV in the central nervous system”.
On June 3, 2021, Dr. Jiang was chosen as an NSURP mentor and will work with Mr. Brayan Ruiz for his summer study. Brayan is a Biology student at Franklin & Marshall College, PA. NSURP serves as a community-driven initiative to sponsor research opportunities for BIPOC and Latinx undergraduate students interested in microbial sciences and/or computational immunology. 2021 NSURP received ~250 student applications- Jiang Lab is among a cohort of 65! Welcome Brayan.
On June 1-4, 2021, Jiang Lab presented its work in the Keystone Symposia: HIV Pathogenesis and Cure.
On May 25, 2021, Dr. Pengda Liu was interviewed by WNCN for repurposing cancer drug, Lenalidomide, for COVID-19 treatment by modulating ACE2.
On May 19-20, 2021, a press release was published on Vital Signs School of Medicine, BCBP website and Medical Xpress, regarding our recent paper “Lenalidomide downregulates ACE2 protein abundance to alleviate infection by SARS-CoV-2 spike protein conditioned pseudoviruses”.
On May 10, 2021, our paper “Lenalidomide downregulates ACE2 protein abundance to alleviate infection by SARS-CoV-2 spike protein conditioned pseudoviruses” was published online in Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. This was in collaboration with Dr. Pengda Liu’s group in UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and BCBP. Lilly played a major role in the in vitro infection models. Congrats to Lilly!
On April 6, 2021, Mr. Eduardo de la Parra Polina joined our lab. His training will be supported by the Science and Math Achievement and Resourcefulness Track (SMART) Program. SMART summer research accommodates undergraduate student minorities and STEM transfer students. Selected students will spend 9 weeks in research labs, starting mid-May. Welcome Eduardo.
On April 2, 2021, CARE proposal from UNC HIV Cure Center received scores from NIH UM1 study section where Dr. Jiang serves as co-Investigator.
From Feb-March, 2021, Dr. Jiang assisted with faculty recruitment for BCBP.
On March 26, 2021, Dr. Jiang served as the poster/oral presentation judge for BCBP 2021 Research Retreat.
On March 26, 2021, Ms. Lilly Wong presented her study entitled “Egr1 is a new transcription factor to directly regulate HIV transcription” in BCBP 2021 Research Retreat.
On March 15, 2021, Drs. Yuyang Tang and Guochun Jiang’s paper entitled “High prevalence of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND) in São Paulo City, Brazil” was published in Rev. Bras. Neurol. 57(1): 6-12, 2021. This was in collaboration with a Brazilian group in São Paulo City, Brazil, aiming to characterize HAND among HIV+ men and women.
From Feb 5 to 18, 2021, Dr. Jiang assisted with UNC BBSP graduate student recruitment for Fall 2021.
On Feb 1, 2021, Mr. Daniel Zhong from UNC joined Jiang lab as an undergraduate research assistant. Welcome Daniel.
Ms. Lilly Wong and Dr. Guochun Jiang’s review paper entitled “NF-κB sub-pathways and HIV cure: A revisit” was published online in EBioMedicine. This review article was recommended and highlighted by the Editors in the issue. Thank you, Lilly, for your great work!
Dr. Guochun Jiang’s proposal on “stress and HIV reservoir” was funded by Qura Therapeutics.
Drs. Guochun Jiang and Yuyang Tang’s proposal in defining HIV reservoirs in the central nervous system was funded by Qura Therapeutics.
Drs. Guochun Jiang and Yuyang Tang’s proposal entitled “Define viral persistence in brain astrocytes” was funded by NIAID/CARE supplement.
Our paper entitled “PEBP1 suppresses HIV transcription and induces latency by inactivating MAPK/NF-κB signaling” was published online in EMBO Reports.
Dr. Jiang was informed by PLoS Pathogens journal that his 2015 paper entitled “Synergistic Reactivation of Latent HIV Expression by Ingenol-3-Angelate, PEP005, Targeted NF-kB Signaling in Combination with JQ1 Induced p-TEFb Activation” has earned the top 10% of citations among papers published from 2014-2018.
Our paper entitled “PEBP1 suppresses HIV transcription and induces latency by inactivating MAPK/NF-κB signaling” was accepted by EMBO Reports. Thank you, Lilly, for your help in editing the manuscript!
Ms. Lilly Wong won an Evolve manual pipette starter pack for Jiang Lab during a recent INTEGRA giveaway! Congrats to Lilly!
Jiang Lab’s application for Efficient Freezer Rebate Program (EFRP) was approved by the Renewable Energy Special Projects Committee. With this support, EFRP funded $5,000 for the cost of a Stirling SU780XLE ULT freezer for Jiang Lab. As a Laboratory Safety Inspection Gold Medal Winner in 2019, Jiang lab will continue to maintain a high standard for lab safety and use highly efficient equipment to make our campus greener than ever!
On May 18th, 2020, Dr. Jiang received UNC Office of Research Development (ORD) Publication Grant for the cost of manuscript publications from his lab from 2020 until June 30, 2021.
Ms. Claire Chang received her UNC 2020 Summer Undergraduate Student Fellowship (SURF) entitled “Targeting Tat/P-TEFb for Deep Silencing of Latent HIV Reservoir”. Congratulations to Claire and thank you, Ms. Lilly Wong, for your work during preparation of the fellowship!
Dr. Yuyang Tang’s paper entitled “Endogenous retroviral envelope syncytin induces HIV-1 spreading and establishes HIV reservoirs in placenta” was accepted by Cell Reports. This project was collaborated with Meharry Medical Collage, UC-Davis and Vanderbilt University. Congrats to Dr. Tang!
Our paper entitled “PEBP1 suppresses HIV transcription and induces latency by inactivating MAPK/NF-κB signaling” was accepted in principal by EMBO Reports. This is collaborated with Zhu Lab in Fudan University. Ms. Lilly Wong was involved in some of the editing work of this manuscript. Thank you, Lilly.
Dr. Jiang received 2020 Center for AIDS Research Developmental Award entitled “HIV Reservoirs in the central nervous system”.
Dr. Yuyang Tang’s proposal entitled “Identifying long-lived HIV-1 cellular reservoirs in the central nervous system (new QP4G)” was funded by Qura Therapeutics. Congratulations to Dr. Tang.
Dr. Jiang’s research paper entitled “Dual effects of the novel ingenol derivatives on the acute and latent HIV-1 infections.” is published in Antiviral Research.
Dr. Jiang (PI) received an award from Qura Therapeutic and NIH to support his deep latency studies.
Our review article entitled “Deep latency: A New Insight into a Functional HIV Cure” is published in EBioMedicine.
Dr. Jiang (PI) received a funding from UNC Center for AIDS Research to support his HIV latency study.
Dr. Li and Dr. Tang presented two posters at the Annual meeting of UNC HIV Cure Center. Congrats to Dr. Li and Dr. Tang.
Ms. Michera Gentry joined Jiang lab as an undergraduate student Research Assistant. Welcome Michera.
Dr. Dajiang Li joined the lab. Dr. Li is an experienced virologist and molecular biologist working on EBV and KHSV. He was a Research Assistant Professor in the University of Utah. Welcome Dajiang.