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SUMMARY:The antigenic evolution of influenza: Drift or Thrift? - Sunetra G
 upta\, University of Oxford
DTSTART:20161020T150000Z
DTEND:20161020T160000Z
UID:TALK68165@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Prof. Julia Gog
DESCRIPTION:One of the greatest challenges to the control of infectious di
 sease is the degree of antigenic diversity exhibited by many pathogen popu
 lations.  I will present a multilocus model for pathogen evolution that re
 solves the paradox that many of these populations exist\, either stably or
  unstably\, as discrete antigenic types\, which may then circulate as inde
 pendently transmitted strains with their own particular virulence characte
 ristics.  On the basis of this theory\, we have proposed that the antigeni
 c evolution of influenza is driven by immunity towards epitopes of limited
  variability (the  ‘antigenic thrift’ hypothesis) rather than as a res
 ult of slow and incremental changes in highly variable epitope regions (th
 e  ‘antigenic drift’ hypothesis).  An important corollary of the thrif
 t model is that universal vaccines may be constructed by identifying such 
 protective epitopes of low variability.  We have recently identified such 
 an epitope in the head domain of the haemagglutinin protein of H1N1 influe
 nza that could be exploited to produce an universal vaccine for H1 influen
 za.
LOCATION:Meeting room 15\, Centre for Mathematical Sciences
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