The Journal Club of the Faculty of Medicine Diponegoro university is a club that aims to familiarize students with reading comprehension of medical journal articles and promote the sharing of ideas and open discussion

1. THE JOURNAL CLUB
1ST MEETING – 24 MAY 2012
Faculty of Medicine Diponegoro University
Course Supervisor: RN Tunjungputri, MD

2. Group 1
 Why do you think that we would like to have an HIV vaccine?
 What is the difficulty in producing an HIV vaccine and in controlling the
immune system against HIV?
 Why did the previous attempts of HIV vaccines were unsuccessful?
 Can a vaccine that induce cytotoxic T lymphocyte prevent HIV infection? Is
“herd effect” immunity in T-cell vaccine for HIV can be achieved?
 What does the article suggest should be done to find an effective HIV
vaccine?
Article:
Johnston MI, Fauci AS. An HIV vaccine--challenges and prospects. N Engl J
Med. 2008 Aug 28;359(9):888-90.
http://1.usa.gov/MZ5ypl

3. Group 2
 Why does the knowledge and strategies to produce effective vaccines for
many viral diseases cannot be applied to HIV?
 What is the goal of HIV vaccine? What strategy is most appropriate for
designing HIV vaccine?
 What is a “structure-based vaccine design” for developing vacccines?
 What is the challenge of this approach? Please explain in your own words!
 Based on this article, what is a likely approach in designing an effective HIV
vaccine?
Article
N Engl J Med. 2011 Sep 8;365(10):873-5. HIV vaccine development--improving
on natural immunity. Johnston MI, Fauci AS.
http://1.usa.gov/OohmyN

4. Group 3
 Why is there still high HBV infection rate?
 Please explain the epidemiology of HIV and HBV co-infection around the
world! Which specific population are highly affected?
 What are the impacts of HIV-HBV co-infection in comparison with HIV or
HBV infection alone?
 What preventive efforts can be done, and what are the challenges that is
still posing difficulties in tackling this problem?
 What is needed to overcome the HIV-HBV co-infection problem?
Article: N Engl J Med. 2012 May 10;366(19):1749-52. HIV-HBV coinfection--
a global challenge. Kourtis AP, Bulterys M, Hu DJ, Jamieson DJ.
http://1.usa.gov/OokAW1