Staff Physician, Medical Service, SFVAMC
Associate Professor of Medicine, UCSF
Email: joseph.wong@va.gov

Dr. Wong was one of the first scientists to identify a small number of HIV-infected cells that can remain dormant in the bodies of patients receiving "cocktails" of antiviral drugs. These cells have the ability to restart high levels of virus infection when antiviral drugs are stopped. Dr. Wong's laboratory now seeks to understand the nature of this form of dormant (latent) infection, as well as how low level replication of virus contributes to maintaining HIV in the body of patients, even after up to 10 years of continuous antiviral treatment.  Such new information may help in the design of better ways of purging the last remnants of virus, and for refining existing ways we treat HIV-infected patients. Dr. Wong's laboratory has also worked with collaborators to better understand how HIV changes genetically to adapt to infection of cells in different body tissues.  Because some antiviral drugs do not get into the brain, and up to 50 percent of untreated patients can develop central neurological complications that occur as a direct consequence of HIV infection, this is an important area of investigation.  Dr. Wong's laboratory was among the first to demonstrate the distinct genetic composition of HIV virus in the central nervous system, including those genetic elements that confer resistance to antiviral compounds.

Pillai SK, Pond SL, Liu Y, Good BM, Strain MC, Ellis RJ, Letendre S, Smith DM, Günthard HF, Grant I, Marcotte TD, McCutchan JA, Richman DD, Wong JK. 2006.  Genetic attributes of cerebrospinal fluid-derived HIV-1 env. Brain 129(Pt 7):1872-83.

Koelsch KK, Liu L, Haubrich R, May S, Havlir D, Günthard HF, Ignacio CC, Campos-Soto P, Little SJ, Shafer R, Robbins GK, D'Aquila RT, Kawano Y, Young K, Dao P, Spina CA, Richman DD, Wong JK. 2008. Dynamics of total, linear nonintegrated, and integrated HIV-1 DNA in vivo and in vitro. J Infect Dis 197(3):411-9.