Abstract

Jonty Carruthers, Martin Lopez-Garcia, Grant Lythe, Carmen Molina-Paris (Leeds). Joseph Gillard, Thomas R Laws, Roman Lukaszewski(Dstl)With a mouse infection model, agent-based computation and mathematical analysis, we study the pathogenesis of Francisella Tularensisinfection. A small initial number of bacteria enter host cells and proliferate inside them, eventually destroying the host cell and releasing numerous copies that infect other cells. Our analysis of disease progression is based on a stochastic model of a population of infectious agents inside one host cell, extending the birth-and-death process by the occurrence of catastrophes: cell rupture events that affect all bacteria in a cell simultaneously. We compare our analysis with the results of agent-based computation and, via Approximate Bayesian Computation, with experimental measurements carried out after of murine aerosol infection with the virulent SCHU S4 strain of the bacterium.If I have time, I will also talk about Ebola, still a significant risk to humankind. Synthetic virology has been used to clone and manufacture two deletion defective genomes. These genomes were tested with Ebola virus using in vitro cell culture and shown to inhibit viral replication. From in vitro experimental data, we identify parameters in a mathematical model of the infection. We examine the time an infected cell spends in the eclipse phase (the period between infection and the start of virus production), as well as the rate at which infectious virions lose infectivity.