5th Workshop on Virus Dynamics

Dr. Schiffer is an infectious disease physician and researcher who develops mathematical models to address significant medical challenges. A major focus of his work is to analyze strategies to achieve an HIV cure in people who require antiviral drugs for their entire lifetime, due to reservoirs of latent virus. These models assess the potential of a wide variety of potential curative technologies. Dr. Schiffer and colleagues also use mathematical modeling to study how T cells help control numerous herpes viruses that cause disease in healthy people and in cancer patients with compromised immune systems. They develop models to explain when and how latent viruses reactivate and use models to optimize the effectiveness of antiviral drugs. His team is also focusing on COVID-19, including developing models of the immune response against the coronavirus and the best treatment strategies.

Dr. Schwartz’s research combines experimental and theoretical techniques to investigate mechanisms in virology, immunology, and infectious disease epidemiology. She uses mathematical and computational modeling of viral dynamics in conjunction with clinical and experimental data in order to predict biological mechanisms, determine biologically relevant rate parameters, and evaluate pathogenic mechanisms that are difficult to test directly. Her research group’s interdisciplinary approach aims to advance our basic understanding of disease mechanisms and to lead to new therapeutic strategies. Currently she is examining the determinants of virus control and escape in lentiviral infection, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV). Other ongoing projects investigate viral evolution in bacteriophage populations, behavioral interventions in COVID-19 dynamics, and the effect of antiretroviral therapy on decreasing the development of renal disease among HIV+ populations.