Mathematical modeling uncovers mysteries of HIV infection in the brain
The group that developed the model -- led by PhD student Weston Roda and Michael Li, a professor in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences -- used data from patients who died five to 15 years after they were infected, as well as known biological processes for the HIV virus to build the model that predicts the growth and progression of HIV in the brain, from the moment of infection onward. It is the first model of an infectious disease in the brain. HIV infection in the brain has been a proverbial black box for scientists since the development of antiretroviral therapy in the 1990s. "The nature of the HIV virus allows it to travel across the blood-brain barrier in infected macrophage -- or white blood cell -- as early as two weeks after infection. Antiretroviral drugs, the therapy of choice for HIV, cannot enter the brain so easily," said Roda. This creates what is known as a viral reservoir, a place in the body where the virus can lay dormant and is r...