DEFINING THE HUMAN VIROME IN IMMUNOCOMPROMISED CHILDREN. human metagenome

Children with fever are frequently infected with viruses and thus are very suitable for early studies of the human virome. In this project, previous studies on normal children with and without fever will be extended to include immunocompromised children. The reasons for studying immunocompromised children are 1) to increase our knowledge of the viruses causing fever in immunocompromised children to improve their medical management, 2) to learn about the influence of the immune system on the composition of the human virome, and 3) to search for novel viruses that might be present in these children because of their immunocompromised state. A series of studies will also be performed to improve the system we have already established for using high throughput nucleotide sequencing to define the human virome.