Since the initial description by Michaelis over a half century ago, of the effects of competition of antigens on the immune response (1), interest in this area has waxed and waned concomitant with the current views and interests of investigators in medicine and biology. Initially, workers were motivated in their studies by a practical purpose, since antigenic competition played a vital role in ...

The tradeoff between the need to suppress drug-resistant viruses and the problem of treatment toxicity has led to the development of various drug-sparing HIV-1 treatment strategies. Here we use a stochastic simulation model for viral dynamics to investigate how the timing and duration of the induction phase of induction-maintenance therapies might be optimized. Our model suggests that under a v...

Kidney transplantation remains the most effective modality for the treatment of end-stage renal disease. The development of induction therapy has significantly reduced the incidence of acute rejection within the first six months following kidney transplantation. As a result, induction therapy is typically administered in the majority of kidney transplants. Moreover, early graft function has als...

BACKGROUND Induction-maintenance therapy is a treatment regime where patients are prescribed an intense course of treatment for a short period of time (the induction phase), followed by a simplified long-term regimen (maintenance). Since induction therapy has a significantly higher chance of pill fatigue than maintenance therapy, patients might take drug holidays during this period. Without gui...