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"New KL HIV strain in poster"
The
Star (www.thestar.com.my)
(20/08/06)
TORONTO: The journey of identifying a HIV strain unique to Malaysia, which
started two years ago, has earned Tee Kok Keng a“bonus” of having a poster
of his research presented at the XVI International AIDS Conference here.
“I detected it two years ago and managed to define it,” said the 26-year-old
PhD student of Universiti Malaya.
“But it only took me a few months to decide what content to include in the
poster and a few hours to create it. It was a bonus.”
The poster was included in the exhibition on Wednesday at the Metro Toronto
Convention Centre and his findings are due to be published in the Journal of
AIDS.
The strain, CRF33_01B, is created when two independent strains “come
together” in one person and these strains recombine to create the new form.
He said that the whole process began when his lecturers provided him a blood
sample to test when he was studying for his Masters in biomedical chemistry
at UM. After carrying out laboratory work, Tee found a potentially new
strain that could only be found in Malaysians.
He expanded the test again using new blood samples last year as he had to
isolate the white blood cells to culture them and carry out more tests on
it, including DNA, cloning and sequencing.
This, he said was carried out at Japan’s National Institute of Infectious
Diseases where he is now based to do research work.
Others involved in the project are his academic supervisors Prof Dr Adeeba
Kamarulzaman, Prof Dr Ng Kee Peng, research supervisor Dr Yutaka Takebe and
co-workers Li Xiao-Jie and Kyoko Nontomi.
Tee said that it debunked the theory that there was no transmission among
the different risk groups such as injecting drug users or heterosexuals.
Tee, who is from Seremban, hopes to become a doctor after finishing his
doctorate.
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