Research Workshop on Mathematical Virology

病毒对公共卫生部门构成重大威胁，迫切需要新的有效抗病毒治疗方法。对病毒结构及其形成机制的深入了解为开发此类疗法提供了基础。大多数病毒将它们的基因组物质包装在一个蛋白质容器中，这个蛋白质容器就像特洛伊木马一样，为宿主之间的病毒基因组提供保护和运输。这些蛋白质容器被认为是有序的，因此可以用对称的数学语言来理解。在本次研讨会中，我们将探索了解病毒结构所需的数学工具，然后利用这些结果来深入了解病毒如何形成以及它们如何感染宿主。了解这些过程如何依赖于蛋白质容器的几何形状，可能有助于开发抑制这些过程的新策略。这些反过来又有可能导致针对病毒生命周期的这些阶段的抗病毒药物的开发。在这个跨学科的研讨会上，我们计划将数学家与生物物理学家、计算和实验生物学家聚集在一起，研究病毒结构和组装的各个方面，从而创造一个环境，促进数学界与其他相关学科的有意义的互动。这种相互作用对于确保数学建模在生物学中的影响尤为重要。在本次研讨会上，我们将探索在病毒结构、组装、基因组包装等领域进行数学建模的机会，并首次探索在纳米技术应用方面的机会。这些重点领域将在会议上以主题演讲和热点话题辩论为代表。专项奖学金将鼓励年轻研究人员参加会议。

Viruses pose a significant threat for the public health sector and new efficient anti-viral treatments are urgently required. Insights in the structures of viruses and the mechanism underlying their formation provide the basis for the development of such therapeutics. Most viruses package their genomic material in a protein container that acts as a Trojan horse, providing protection and transport for the viral genome between hosts. These protein containers are known to be well ordered, and can therefore be understood in terms of the mathematical language of symmetry. In this workshop we explore the mathematical tools necessary to understand the structures of viruses, and then exploit these results to gain insights in how viruses form and how they infect their hosts. An understanding of how these processes depend on the geometries of the protein containers potentially permits the development of novel strategies for inhibiting these processes. These in turn have the potential to result in the development of anti-viral drugs targeted at such stages of the viral life cycle. In this interdisciplinary workshop we are planning to bring together mathematicians with biophysicists, computational and experimental biologists working on various aspects of the structure and assembly of viruses, thus creating an environment that facilitates meaningful interactions for the mathematical community with other relevant disciplines. Such interactions are especially important to ensure the impact of the mathematical modelling in biology. In this workshop we will explore opportunities for mathematical modelling in the areas of virus structure, assembly, genome packaging and, for the first time, also in nanotechnology applications. These focus areas will be represented by keynote talks as well as hot topic debates at the meeting. Earmarked bursaries will encourage young researchers to attend the meeting.