Rustom Antia Modelling Immune memory and the turnover of memory cells. We will develop and test a theoretical framework to describe the longevity of immune memory, and very recent experimental tests of the assumptions of this theoretical framework. Increasing the usage of ART in San Francisco would decrease the AIDS death rate and could substantially reduce the incidence rate.
Somatic mutation is a fundamental component of acquired immunity.
Although its molecular basis remains undetermined, the sequence specificity with which mutations are introduced has provided clues to the mechanism. In other words, we sought to determine what effects the neighboring bases have on what a given base mutates to. We find that both neighboring bases have a significant effect on the mutation spectrum. Their influences are complicated but much of the effect can be characterized as enhancing homogeneity of the mutated DNA sequence. We compared the spectrum to that found previously for germline mutations as revealed by analyzing pseudogene sequences.