Related papers: Does Antibiotic Resistance Evolve in Hospitals?
Viruses like influenza have long coevolved with host immune systems, gradually shaping the evolutionary trajectory of these pathogens. Host immune systems develop immunity against circulating strains, which in turn avoid extinction by…
The role of activity on the hydrodynamic dispersion of bacteria in a model porous medium is studied by tracking thousands of bacteria in a microfluidic chip containing randomly placed pillars. We first evaluate the spreading dynamics of two…
Dynamic properties of spreading infection through a heterogeneous population are studied numerically and analytically using a dynamic variant of Watts and Strogatz Small World Network-based stochastic Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed…
Antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) microbes are a growing challenge in healthcare, rendering modern medicines ineffective. AMR arises from antibiotic production and bacterial evolution, but quantifying its transmission remains difficult. With…
We investigate the rates of drug resistance acquisition in a natural population using molecular epidemiological data from Bolivia. First, we study the rate of direct acquisition of double resistance from the double sensitive state within…
We study minimal mean-field models of viral drug resistance development in which the efficacy of a therapy is described by a one-dimensional stochastic resetting process with mixed reflecting-absorbing boundary conditions. We derive…
It has been known for many years that small fractions of persister cells resist killing in many bacterial colony-antimicrobial confrontations. These persisters are not believed to be mutants. Rather it has been hypothesized that they are…
We study the spreading of cooperative infections in an empirical temporal network of contacts between people, including health care workers and patients, in a hospital. The system exhibits a phase transition leading to one or several…
Bacteria pose unique challenges for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) because of strong structuring into distinct strains and substantial linkage disequilibrium across the genome. While methods developed for human studies can correct…
There is an abundance of information about the genetic basis, physiological and molecular mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis. In contrast, relatively little is known about population dynamic processes, by which bacteria colonize hosts and…
Bacteria and archaea have evolved an adaptive, heritable immune system that recognizes and protects against viruses or plasmids. This system, known as the CRISPR-Cas system, allows the host to recognize and incorporate short foreign DNA or…
Antibiotic resistance, which is a serious healthcare issue, emerges due to uncontrolled and repeated antibiotic use that causes bacteria to mutate and develop resistance to antibiotics. The Antibiotics Time Machine Problem aims to come up…
We propose a mathematical model to analyze the effects of anti-infection behavior on the equilibrium states of an infectious disease. The anti-infection behavior is incorporated into a classical epidemiological SIR model, by considering the…
Time varying susceptibility of host at individual level due to waning and boosting immunity is known to induce rich long-term behavior of disease transmission dynamics. Meanwhile, the impact of the time varying heterogeneity of host…
Hospital-acquired infections of communicable viral diseases (CVDs) are posing a tremendous challenge to healthcare workers globally. Healthcare personnel (HCP) is facing a consistent risk of hospital-acquired infections, and subsequently…
Bacterial colonies are a well-known example of living active matter, exhibiting collective behaviors such as nematic alignment and collective motion that play an important role in the spread of microbial infections. While the underlying…
The tolerance of bacterial populations to biocidal or antibiotic treatment has been well documented in both biofilm and planktonic settings. However, there is still very little known about the mechanisms that produce this tolerance.…
Laboratory models are often used to understand the interaction of related pathogens via host immunity. For example, recent experiments where ferrets were exposed to two influenza strains within a short period of time have shown how the…
Knowledge of the time at which an HIV-infected individual seroconverts, when the immune system starts responding to HIV infection, plays a vital role in the design and implementation of interventions to reduce the impact of the HIV…
Transmission rates in epidemic outbreaks may vary over time depending on the societal response. Non-pharmacological mitigation strategies such as social distancing and the adoption of protective equipment aim precisely at reducing…