Dr Leal is the author of Evolutionary Dynamics of HIV-1 BF and CB Recombinants and Its Parental Counterparts in South America, which was recently published in Retrovirology: Research and Treatment.

The Editor in Chief of Retrovirology: Research and Treatment recently issued a call for papers.

In this interview Dr Leal discusses research, recently published articles and views on open access publishing.

What is the primary focus of your research?

Molecular evolution of viruses.

What are the most exciting developments arising from current research in your area?

I've been studying some aspects of HIV-1 epidemic in Brazil. Previously HIV-1 subtype B epidemic in Brazil was previously thought to be composed by 2 distinct variants. We found that these variants were indeed the same virus (see Leal E, et al.Virology. 2008 Nov 25;381(2):222-9. 2008 Sep 23.) [Pubmed]

Who are your main collaborators? Please describe your work with them.

They are:

• Hirohisa Kishino from Tokyo Univ. We have some project in developing methods to detect DNA recombination. We also have a project that aims to evaluate the influence of host polymorphism of in the AIDS outcome.

• Leonardo de Oliveira Martins from Vigo Univ. We have some collaboration in the understanding of HIV-1 infection in Brazil

How did you come to be working in your research area?

After graduating in Veterinary medicine I had a friend who was working with genetics of wild felids (cats) and hi asked me to get involved in a study to survey viral diseases in these animals. Then I started a master course. Subsequently I became more interested in phylogenetics and this was a motivation to chose molecular evolution as the main area of my research.

What do you think about the development of open access publishing? What motivated you to do so?

I think with the popularization of Internet open access journals are essential. I'm from a poor country so the full access to articles makes a big different to our work.

What articles and/or books have you published recently?

• Erection induced by Tx2-6 toxin of Phoneutria nigriventer spider: Expression profile of genes in the nitric oxide pathway of penile tissue of mice. Villanova FE, Andrade E, Leal E, Andrade PM, Borra RC, Troncone LR, Magalhães L, Leite KR, Paranhos M, Claro J, Srougi M. Toxicon. 2009 Jun 12. [Pubmed]

• Molecular and structural characterization of HIV-1 subtype B Brazilian isolates with GWGR tetramer at the tip of the V3-loop. Leal E, Silva WP, Sucupira MC, Janini LM, Diaz RS. Virology. 2008 Nov 25;381(2):222-9. [Pubmed]

• Selective regimes and evolutionary rates of HIV-1 subtype B V3 variants in the Brazilian epidemic. Diaz RS, Leal E, Sanabani S, Sucupira MC, Tanuri A, Sabino EC, Janini LM. Virology. 2008 Nov 25;381(2):184-93. [Pubmed]

• Phylogenetic detection of recombination with a Bayesian prior on the distance between trees. Martins Lde O, Leal E, Kishino H. PLoS One. 2008 Jul 9;3(7):e2651. [Pubmed]

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