Understanding the association between infection acquisition and disease progression

Katherine Atkins (primary)
Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health
LSHTM
Stéphane Hué (secondary)
Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health
LSHTM

Abstract

Is the way we respond to disease dictated by how we are exposed to infection? Our understanding of disease either focuses on the spread of disease through a population, or the dynamics of infection within an infected host. However, does the route of transmission involved in acquiring a disease (for example, sexual transmission or airborne transmission) impact how deadly the disease will be? By understanding the determinants of disease progression, we will be able to develop more effective treatment strategies.


References

– Chaillon et al. (2016) Characterizing the multiplicity of HIV founder variants during sexual transmission among MSM. Virus Evolution 2(1)
– Janes et al. (2015) HIV-1 infections with multiple founders are associated with higher viral loads than infections with single founders. Nature Medicine 21(10)
– Keele et al. (2008) Identification and characterization of transmitted and early founder virus envelopes in primary HIV-1 infection. PNAS 105(21)


BBSRC Area
Genes, development and STEM* approaches to biology
Area of Biology
EvolutionGenetics
Techniques & Approaches
BioinformaticsGeneticsMathematics / StatisticsSimulation / Modelling