Complex Systems in Biology

Group Leader: Professor Miles Davenport

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Overview of Research

Although many acute infectious diseases are now effectively controlled by vaccination, we currently lack vaccines for many chronic infectious agents. These infections are of particular importance in the developing world, where hundreds of millions of people each year are affected by chronic infections such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. The Complex Systems in Biology group aims to understand the basic dynamics and pathogenesis of these infections, how the immune system interacts with them, and ultimately how we can control them. To achieve this we apply computational and mathematical approaches to understanding and predicting the complex interactions between host and pathogen. These interactions range from the molecular level (how immune molecules such as the T cell receptor interact with viral molecules), through to the dynamics of infection within individual hosts, and finally to the level of the host and pathogen population. The group brings together medical biologists, bioinformaticians, physicists, mathematicians, engineers and computer scientists to tackle these fundamental questions. The laboratory has a wide range of collaborations with experimentalists working in different areas of infection and immunity. The group's key research areas are:
These are outlined in more detail on the Research Projects page.