GMU Talk on May 11, 10-11am.

Why Cocktail Drug Treatments Are More Effective for AIDS

Frederic Y.M. Wan
Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3875, U.S.A.

Abstract:

The talk begins with a description of the biological processes of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that lead to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). A three-component mathematical model (of normal cell, infected cell and HIV populations) is formulated to capture the viral dynamics of these biological processes. The system of differential equations involved is found to have only two possible steady states: a state P1 of only HIV population and a state P2 consisting of a combination of three populations. The system is shown to exhibits a transcritical bifurcation on
the stability of these two states. The model is then modified to include two distinct types of drug treatments. It will be shown that the effectiveness of both  treatments may be lower (than that required of a single drug) in order for the system to be in state P2.