Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2003

Mentor: William M. Lee, M.D.
Department: Internal Medicine/ Digestive and Liver Diseases
Room number: F4.302
Mail Code: 9151
Phone number: 83323
E-mail: William.Lee@utsouthwestern.edu
Project title: Evolution of Quasispecies in Chronic Hepatitis C Over a 10-Year Period

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): TBD

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): n/a

Project Type: patient-based research

Brief Description of Project:

There is extensive data from Europe, but very little from the US as to what happens to patients with hepatitis C over time. How many have died, how many have been transplanted, how many are alive and asymptomatic or have developed complications of their liver disease? Ms. Tran will track the natural history of hepatitis C patients in the metroplex using chart review and an established hepatitis database.
A corollary project is to obtain current serum samples to study genomic drift in the HCV RNA of these same patients. An extensive serum bank which parallels the data bank is available. The hepatitis C virus rapidly mutates leading to genetic drift as a result of immune pressure. The more the host tries to develop an immune response (neutralizing antibody formation), the more the virus is capable of change. This has not been analyzed over longer time intervals (>2 yrs) such as those represented by the current patient group. Sequencing would be performed in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Gale. Insights as to the role of genetic drift would depend on combining the genetic information with that obtained from the medical records: how much treatment had been received, how much progression of liver disease has occurred, is there a correlation between the rate of progression and the genetic diversity observed?

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:

I have sponsored/mentored five summer medical students. Eric Suhler, UTSW '96, won the Basic Science Prize for his oral presentation at the National Medical Student Association competition in Galveston in 1996 which was based on his summer research and was published in Critical Care Medicine. Eric also took home the TMA Student Research Award in Austin in the same year for his poster on the same subject.
Suhler E, Lin W, Yin H, Lee WM. Decreased plasma gelsolin levels in acute liver failure, myocardial infarction, septic shock and myonecrosis. Crit Care Med 25:594-8, 1997.

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