- Series
- School of Mathematics Colloquium
- Time
- Thursday, January 28, 2016 - 11:05am for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
- Location
- Skiles 006
- Speaker
- Leonid Bunimovich – Georgia Institute of Technology – leonid.bunimovich@math.gatech.edu – http://people.math.gatech.edu/~bunimovh/
- Organizer
- Michael Damron
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has the propensity to cause
chronic infection. HCV affects an estimated 170 million people
worldwide. Immune escape by continuous genetic diversification is
commonly described using a metaphor of "arm race" between virus and
host. We developed a mathematical model that explained all clinical
observations which could not be explained by the "arm race theory". The
model applied to network of cross-immunoreactivity suggests antigenic
cooperation as a mechanism of mitigating the immune
pressure on HCV variants.
Cross-immunoreactivity was observed for dengue, influenza, etc.
Therefore antigenic cooperation is a new target for therapeutic- and
vaccine- development strategies. Joint work with P.Skums and Yu.
Khudyakov (CDC).
Our model is in a sense simpler than old one. In the speaker's opinion
it is a good example to discuss what Math./Theor. Biology is and what it
should be. Such (short) discussion is expected.
NO KNOWLEDGE of Biology is expected to understand this talk.