Research Workshop on Mathematical Virology

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.

Society faces a number of major challenges due to the impacts of global warming on world climate. One consequence is the spread of otherwise rare and poorly characterised viral infections into economically advanced areas of the world. Examples include Bluetongue virus, which arrived in the UK after years of being restricted to much warmer climates. This poses a threat to public and animal health from both existing viruses and newly emerging ones. This workshop is directed at a fundamental understanding of the principles that drive virus assembly and disassembly, which are major as yet unexploited therapeutic targets. Therefore, the public health sector will be a beneficiary of this research. Moreover, virus assembly is an important example of biomolecular self-assembly, and mathematical models for this process help to devise the best ways of configuring viral containers for cargo storage and transport at the nanoscale. Therefore, bionanotechnology applications enhancing the quality of life will also benefit from this research. A recent example is our work on light harvesting systems at the nanoscale. In order for the public health sector and bionanotechnology applications to benefit from mathematical research in this area it is paramount that such research be done in close collaboration with other relevant disciplines, in particular biology and biophysics. This workshop provides a unique forum for this type of interdisciplinary exchange that closes an important gap in the research landscape. In order to ensure the impact of the workshop, details about the workshop will be published on the webpages of York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis at the University of York, as well as those of the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds via a purpose designed web interface. Detailed information about the workshop will be sent to leading institutions in the field to advertise the workshop, and we are planning to publicise the event via our standard mailing lists as well as via an announcement in the Mathematical Biology Newsletter of the Society for Mathematical Biology. We specifically encourage the participation of talented PhD students, Postdocs and Research Fellows via earmarked bursaries. Hot topic debates draw particular attention to important open problems in the four focus areas of the workshop. A special journal issue on Mathematical Virology as a state-of-the-art summary of workshop results will help disseminate the results of the workshop in the scientific community. Moreover, public engagement is important to us and we continue to disseminate our research, including the outcomes of this workshop, via regular contributions to public awareness events.