Conveners
Frontiers in viral dynamics
- Deborah Cromer (UNSW)
- Shingo Iwami (Kyushu-u.org)
Description
Accurate mathematical models describing the natural history and dynamics of viral infection can be constructed using data from carefully designed and controlled experiments. These models can be used to extract important quantitative information such as the fold-change in virus production caused by a specific viral mutation or the mode of action and/or efficacy of a novel antiviral compound. The minisymposium will provide examples of how mathematics can provide unique and novel insights to advance knowledge in the field of virology and help drive the development of novel interventions in medicine. The presentations will inform the audience about recent advances in the quantitative understanding of virological mechanics, the optimal experiments to extract the greatest possible amount of quantitative information about a particular viral strain and how this information can impact therapy for viral infections.
Viral interference, whereby infection with one type of virus may temporarily “protect” the host from subsequent infection with another virus has been described for a number of influenza strains and in a number of different host species. In particular, experiments performed in ferrets with influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, A(H3N2) and B have demonstrated strong levels of interference dependent upon the...
Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) is widespread infectious disease and more than 240 million people are chronic infected so far. Although some patients can suppress the viral load under detection limits by current drug treatments, these are not effective for over 60% of patients. The obstacles for developing effective drugs are the existence of a reservoir in infected cells, which is known as covalently...
The host range of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is quite narrow. Therefore, analyzing HIV-1 pathogenesis in vivo has been limited owing to lack of appropriate animal model systems. To overcome this, chimeric simian and human immunodeficiency viruses (SHIVs) that encode HIV-1 Env and are infectious to macaques have been developed and used to investigate the pathogenicity of HIV-1 *in...
One of the main focuses of HIV research today concerns allowing people living with HIV to experience prolonged periods where they do not need to remain on treatment. Current therapies are able to suppress HIV to undetectable levels, however as soon as therapy is interrupted the virus “rebounds” to pre-treatment levels and this leads to increased morbidity from HIV. This rebound likely occurs...
