Dr. Thio’s laboratory has two primary focuses related to chronic viral hepatitis infections. Her first area of interest is HIV-hepatitis B virus (HBV) co-infection. Her group found that HIV accelerates HBV-related liver disease progression. She currently has several projects aimed at understanding…
more mechanisms behind this increased liver disease progression. Her group is studying the HBV genome to determine if mutations exist that may be associated with more rapid liver disease progression. The group also focuses on understanding the development of drug-resistant HBV in the setting of HIV infection. Dr. Thio also has several molecular epidemiology projects in the United States and internationally that are designed to understand the anti-HIV and anti-HBV response to antiretroviral therapy in HIV-HBV co-infected patients. Her second area of interest is determining host genetic factors that are associated with recovery from hepatitis B and hepatitis C infections. To this end, Dr. Thio has a large cohort of HBV-infected persons who have either recovered from the infection or remain chronically infected. She has a second cohort of persons infected with HCV who have either recovered or remain chronically HCV infected. Her group has investigated several candidate genes to determine whether polymorphisms in those genes influence HBV or HCV recovery or persistence.
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