Theoretical Immunology Laboratory

Vitaly V. Ganusov

Research

The main focus of the research carried out in our laboratory is to understand the influence of immunity on the within-host dynamics and evolution of infectious diseases. We use mathematical models to understand the kinetics, pathways of differentiation and efficiency of immune responses (in particular, CD8 T cell response) to intracellular pathogens such Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), Influenza, Listeria monocytogenes (LM), Simian and Human immunodeficiency viruses (SIV and HIV). We have been developing and refining methods to quantify rates of production and death of immune cells and rates of migration of immune cells to different organs in mice and humans from experimental data. We also have been investigating how pathogens evolve within (and between) hosts to avoid immunity and how such evolutionary interplay between the pathogen and the host may result in disease. Particular topics we are currently interested in include “Kinetics of CD8 T cell responses to intracellular pathogens”, “Quantifying turnover of immune cells in vitro and in vivo”, “Viral evolution within hosts in response to immunity”.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
See a complete list of publications from Pubmed.

Ganusov V. V., J. M. A. Borghans, and R. J. De Boer (2010) Explicit kinetic heterogeneity: a new method for interpreting data from stable isotope labeling experiments PLoS Comput Biol 6(2): e1000666

Ganusov V. V. and R. J. De Boer (2008) Estimating in vivo death rates of targets due to CD8 T cell-mediated killing J Virol 82(23): 11749-57

Ganusov V. V. and R. J. De Boer (2007) Do most lymphocytes in humans really reside in the gut? Trends Immunol 28(12): 514-518

Ganusov V. V. (2007) Discriminating between different pathways of memory CD8+ T cell differentiation J Immunol 179(8): 5006-13

Ganusov V. V., D. Milutinovic and R. J. De Boer (2007) IL-2 regulates expansion of CD4+ T cell populations by affecting cell death: insights from modeling CFSE data J Immunol 179(2): 950-957

Ganusov V. V., S. S. Pilyugin, R. Ahmed, and R. Antia (2006) How does cross-reactive stimulation affect the longevity of CD8+ T cell memory? PLoS Comput Biol 2(6): e56

Antia, R., V. V. Ganusov and R. Ahmed (2005) The role of models in understanding immunological memory. Nat Rev Immunol, 5: 101-11

Ganusov V. V. and R. Antia (2003) Trade-os and the evolution of virulence of microparasites: do details matter? Theor Pop Biol, 64: 211-220

Ganusov V. V., C. T. Bergstrom and R. Antia (2002) Within-host population dynamics and the evolution of microparasites in a heterogeneous host population. Evolution, 56(2): 213-223

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People

Vitaly Ganusov Vitaly V. Ganusov (PI)

Yiding Yang (post-doc)

Elizabeth Johnson (phD student) (photo to come)

Pranay Dogra (joint phD student with Tim Sparer's lab.) (photo to come)

Jeremy Auerbach (master student also working with Sergey Gavrilets.) (photo to come)

If you are interested in joining our laboratory as a graduate student or a post-doc, let me know via email, vitaly (at) utk (dot) edu. Some funding opportunity exists at NIMBioS (www.nimbios.org)

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