Related papers: Endogenous versus Exogenous Origins of Diseases
Different pathogens spreading in the same host population often generate complex co-circulation dynamics because of the many possible interactions between the pathogens and the host immune system, the host life cycle, and the space…
The shape of an epidemic wave in simple epidemic models applies to a homogeneous distribution of infected people in the population. In large inhomogeneous systems, at country-scale for instance, the wave shape is similar except for the…
A fundamental problem in medicine and biology is to assign states, e.g. healthy or diseased, to cells, organs or individuals. State assignment or making a diagnosis is often a nontrivial and challenging process and, with the advent of omics…
The spread of infectious disease and the evolution of antigenically distinct strains are often modeled separately, despite strong feedbacks mediated by host immune memory and heterogeneous contacts. To tackle this challenging problem, we…
The homeostasis of epithelial tissue relies on a balance between the self-renewal of stem cell populations, cellular differentiation, and loss. Although this balance needs to be tightly regulated to avoid pathologies, such as tumor growth,…
Traditional epidemic models consider that individual processes occur at constant rates. That is, an infected individual has a constant probability per unit time of recovering from infection after contagion. This assumption certainly fails…
Biological systems, with many interacting components, face high-dimensional environmental fluctuations, ranging from diverse nutrient deprivations to toxins, drugs, and physical stresses. Yet, many biological control mechanisms are `simple'…
This paper investigates the dynamics of immune response and autoimmunity with particular emphasis on the role of regulatory T cells (Tregs), T cells with different activation thresholds, and cytokines in mediating T cell activity. Analysis…
We consider a model of dynamics of the immune system. The model is based on three factors: occasional boosting and continuous waning of immunity and a general description of the period between subsequent boosting events. The antibody…
In the studies of dynamics of pathogens and their interactions with a host immune system, an important role is played by the structure of antigenic variants associated with a pathogen. Using the example of a model of antigenic variation in…
Stem cell heterogeneity is essential for the homeostasis in tissue development. This paper established a general formulation for understanding the dynamics of stem cell regeneration with cell heterogeneity and random transitions of…
A current challenge for disease modeling and public health is understanding pathogen dynamics across scales since their ecology and evolution ultimately operate on several coupled scales. This is particularly true for vector-borne diseases,…
Mechanisms of immunity, and of the host-pathogen interactions in general are among the most fundamental problems of medicine, ecology, and evolution studies. Here, we present a microscopic, protein-level, sequence-based model of immune…
The evolution of the adaptive immune system is characterized by changes in the relative abundances of the B- and T-cell clones that make up its repertoires. To fully capture this evolution, we need to describe the complex dynamics of the…
Through extensive studies of dynamical system modeling cellular growth and reproduction, we find evidence that complexity arises in multicellular organisms naturally through evolution. Without any elaborate control mechanism, these systems…
Microbial growth and division are fundamental processes relevant to many areas of life science. Of particular interest are homeostasis mechanisms, which buffer growth and division from accumulating fluctuations over multiple cycles. These…
The distinction between "healthy" and "unhealthy" patients is commonly based on single, discrete values taken at an isolated point in time (e.g., blood pressure or core temperature). Perhaps a more robust and insightful diagnosis can be…
Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms and can spread through different ways. Mathematical models and computational simulation have been used extensively to investigate the transmission and spread of infectious…
Multi-strain pathogens such as Group A Streptococcus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus cause millions of infections each year with a substantial health burden. Control of multi-strain pathogens can be complicated by the…
In numerous contexts, individuals may decide whether they take actions to mitigate the spread of disease, or not. Mitigating the spread of disease requires an individual to change their routine behaviours to benefit others, resulting in a…