War in the body : the evolutionary arms race between HIV and the human immune system and the implications for vaccines

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. Front Matter....Pages i-xix Introduction....Pages 1-36 Front Matter....Pages 37-37 The HIV Infection Model....Pages 39-47 The CTL Model....Pages 49-53 Simulating an HIV Infection In Vivo ....Pages 55-63 The Escape Formula....Pages 65-69 Early and Late Escapes....Pages 71-79 Understanding Escape....Pages 81-96 More Topics About Escape from Immune Control....Pages 97-111 HIV’s Cloaking Device: The Fascinating Story of Nef....Pages 113-122 Retroviral Sex and Escape....Pages 123-134 The N e Business, Again, and a Proposed Experiment....Pages 135-146 Can a T-Cell Vaccine Block Escape?....Pages 147-160 The STEP Trial, Monkey Trials, and the Future of T-Cell Vaccines....Pages 161-168 Afterword: The RV144 Trial and the Current Status of HIV Vaccine Research....Pages 169-173 Front Matter....Pages 175-175 Short Tutorial on Dynamical Models....Pages 177-181 Deterministic Modeling: A Cautionary Example....Pages 183-185 The Infection Model Defined....Pages 187-190 The CTL Model Defined....Pages 191-193 On Simulation Techniques....Pages 195-204 Derivation of the Escape Formula....Pages 205-213 Front Matter....Pages 175-175 Statistics of the Mutant Lineage in Classical Genetics....Pages 215-218 Extinction Probabilities with Extra-Poisson Variation....Pages 219-221 Computing the Boundaries....Pages 223-225 Co-existence or Replacement?....Pages 227-229 The Nef-Deletion Threshold Formulas....Pages 231-233 Modeling Retroviral Sex....Pages 235-240 Back Matter....Pages 241-298 W. David Wick, Otto O. Yang. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Mode Of Access: World Wide Web.