Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes acute and chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.It currently infects more than 38 million people in China and 170 million people over the world.There is no vaccine to prevent HCV infection yet, and the current interferon-based treatment is partially effective and has strong side effects.The HCV has long been impeded by the lack of infection cell culture model.We recently established a robust in vitro HCV infection model using a genotype 2a clone JFH-1.This system should provide a powerful new tool for the analysis of host-virus interactions that should facilitate the discovery of antiviral drugs and vaccines for this important human pathogen.