Recent approaches utilizing single genome amplification (SGA) of viral sequences from acutely infected patients overcame prior limitations in analyzing the genomes of viruses initiating clinical infection, thereby enabling the identification of transmitted/founder (T/F) HIV env as well as proviral sequences with high reliability, and the subsequent generation of infectious molecular clones (IMC) of T/F HIV-1 [1-3] . This evidence concerns the gene ERVW-1 and infection.