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From the Canadian Institutes of Health Research

It has been 24 years since scientists first isolated Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, but there are still many unanswered questions about this deadly pathogen. One of the biggest mysteries surrounding the virus is when and where it first began to infect humans. With the help of funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Dr. Hendrik Poinar at McMaster University is using state-of-the-art DNA extraction techniques to go back in time and reveal the untold history of HIV.

"I've always been interested in studying the origins of things. But rather than using contemporary DNA samples to estimate the past, our lab actually uses samples from the past to address current questions," says Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist who got his start extracting genetic material from permafrost-preserved mammoth remains.

Poinar's wife, Dr. Debi Poinar, is also a researcher at McMaster and she has played a large role in this investigation of HIV DNA. She spent several years contacting laboratories around the world to find the earliest known samples of HIV, some dating from the early 1950s.

Sequencing the DNA from these archival samples will help researchers piece together HIV's family tree, and hopefully shed some light on when the virus made the jump to humans and how it spread throughout the world. Previous evidence has suggested that HIV began infecting people sometime between the early 1900s and the 1950s, somewhere in central Africa. Coming up with a more specific time and date could reveal what factors contributed to the spread of AIDS. Also, a better understanding of HIV's genome may help hasten the development of an effective vaccine, as it could tell researchers which genes have remained relatively unchanged in this rapidly mutating virus.

The Poinars hope that the DNA extraction and sequencing techniques they are developing will help researchers studying other diseases, such as influenza and cholera. For instance, they are currently collaborating with Dr. David Earn, a mathematician at McMaster who is comparing death rates in Ontario to changes in the genetic makeup of viruses that have passed through the province.

"I've always believed that understanding the past will help us predict future evolutionary directions, and understanding the basic biology of HIV's origins will lead to some fundamental knowledge that will be useful in fighting the virus," says Hendrik.