Meeting Abstract

S4.3-3  Sunday, Jan. 5 14:30  Mapping infections in phase space SCHNEIDER, DS; Stanford University dschneider@stanford.edu

We would like predict how sick an individual will get when they suffer an infection. We study this problem using disease tolerance curves at a population level and using disease space to track individuals. Our recent work on measuring and modeling disease tolerance in a Drosophila infection shows that at least one of these curves is sigmoid shaped. This suggests that there is a rate limiting process for death and provides a route to defining physiologies that specifically control resistance and tolerance. To track the progress of individuals through infections, we have been plotting the routes they take through multi-dimensional disease space. This lets us map phase space and define areas of comfort, illness, recovery and danger. This works for situations in which we can follow the progress of an infected animal longitudinally and we will present work suggesting methods for preparing these curves from cross sectional data.