1. Pulmonary Hypertension Associated with HIV Infection Dr. Sonia Flores
University of Colorado
During the workshop offered by Dr. Flores we learned about the relationship between
pulmonary hypertension and HIV infection. Oxidative stress is caused by radical oxygen
molecules with unpaired electrons that are very reactive oxidases proteins and genes. HIV is a
virus that inhibits this sort of radical behavior. They conducted several studies and determined
that the majority of cases involving pulmonary hypertension were all also HIV patients. They
believe that this is mainly due to nef allele proliferation of endophilial cells, since they found
mutations of nef in all PAH-HIV patients. Their goal is to study specific nef mutations in order
to be able to predict whether or not the HIV patient will develop PAH.