BookW. David Wick, Otto O. Yang.
Summary: In the relatively few decades since the introduction of HIV into the human population, variants of the virus have diverged to such an extent that, were the discussion about something other than viruses, said variants could easily be classified as different species. This book will consider these evolutionary variations, as well as the different and, at times, opposing theories attempting to explain them. It will compare and contrast the ways in which the immune system and drugs affect the virus's evolution, and the implications of these for vaccine development. The issue will be explored and explained through "ecological genetics," which postulates that all living organisms have, besides rivals, enemies. This is divergent from the more traditional school of "population genetics," which emphasizes that evolution occurs among rival species (or variants thereof) that compete for niches or resources in a fixed, unreactive environment. Both models will be formulated using mathematical models, which will be included in the book. Finally, it will consider the possibilities for designing a vaccine that blocks HIV from escaping the immune system.
Contents:
The HIV Infection model
The CTL Model
Simulating an HIV Infection In Vivo
The Escape Formula
Early and Late Escapes
Understanding Escape
More Topics about Escape from Immune Control
HIV's Cloaking Device: The Fascinating Story of Nef
Retroviral Sex and Escape
The Ne Business, Again, and a Proposed Experiment
Can a T-cell Vaccine Block Escape?
The STEP Trial and the Future of T-cell Vaccines
Short Tutorial on Dynamical Models
Deterministic Modeling: A Cautionary Example
The Infection Model Defined
The CTL Model Defined
On Simulation Techniques
Derivation of the Escape Formula
Statistics of the Mutant Lineage in Classical Genetics
Extinction Probabilities with Extra_Poisson Variation
Computing the Boundaries
Co-existence or Replacement?
The Nef-Deletion Threshold Formulas
Modeling Retroviral Sex.