Genetic Polymorphisms Associated with Non-Response to Treatment of Chronic HCV Infection

Investigators:

Principal Investigators: Timothy Morgan, Thomas R. O'Brien

Co-Investigators: Tania Mara Welzel; Herbert L. Bonkovsky; James Everhart; Raymond Chung; Stephen Chanock

Hypotheses/Aims

Our aim is to investigate the impact of host genetic polymorphisms in the IFN-α pathway and in IFN-α induced genes on non- response to IFN-α based therapy in HALT-C patients with chronic HCV infection. We hypothesize that these polymorphisms could cause non-responsiveness to interferon-based therapies in a portion of HCV-infected patients. We also propose to examine the effect of chemokine receptor (CCR2 and CCR5) polymorphisms on treatment response.