Ana Calhau, Constança Roquette, Teresa Cordeiro,

Instituto Superior Técnico –

Abstract:

The emergence of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) raised new problems and concerns worldwide. HIV-AIDS is now a global disease which has great influence in people’s lives, especially in developing countries and controlling this type of disease has a significant socio-economical impact.

HIV virus attacks preferentially CD4+ T immune cells, incorporating its DNA, which was previously transcript from a viral RNA, into the cells’ genome. Antiretroviral treatments act in different stages of HIV’s infection, decreasing the organism’s viral loads. The simplest dynamic models for HIV’s infection behavior relate the concentrations of healthy and infected CD4+T cells with viral load. Currently there are more complex models which compare more state variables and parameters.
For a better knowledge of the disease it is essential to cross information obtained through these mathematical models with data from infected people.

The goal of this project is to understand HIV’s complexity and to explore its dynamic, through a mathematical model based on nonlinear differential equations. Biomedical Engineering is expected to have a crucial role in the development of new tools and techniques for discovering a potential AIDS cure.

 

Date: 2010-Mar-26     Time: 14:00:00     Room: 336

For more information: