Janice Clements of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology on how
HIV infects the brain: How did you become interested in studying
viruses? CLEMENTS: I went to graduate school at the University
of Maryland to study biochemistry of cells in the brain. My
first postdoc was with biochemist Bernard Weiss at Johns Hopkins
in molecular biology and genetics. I always had an interest in
the brain from a very molecular level, but I had not studied the
nervous system. I did a second postdoctoral fellowship with
Richard T. Johnson, who was the leader in virus infections of
the brain and in the Department of Neurology here at Johns
Hopkins. In the late 1970s, we were studying this strange virus
that infected sheep, Visna virus, which caused a disease that
was similar to multiple sclerosis. The Visna virus got into the
brain and caused a focused, inflammatory infection, and degrades
myelin, the conducting material that helps signals pass along
neurons, around the infected region. The Visna virus is a type
of lentivirus mad