Seminar Viral Bioinformatics

Translational Bioinformatics for the Prevention and Therapy of Viral Infections

News

• Nico Pfeifer gave an introductory talk on Dec. 10. The slides are in the password protected area.
• Registration: Please send an email to npfeifer at mpi-inf.mpg.de (topic: seminar Viral Bioinformatics)

General info

• Offered by Nico Pfeifer and Thomas Lengauer
• Introductory meeting: Oct. 23 at 2:00 p.m. in room 022 at the groud floor of the MPI for Informatics.
• Block seminar: Feb. 16 - 18, 2016, 9:00 a.m. till 4:00 p.m. (depending on the number of talks). Reports have to be handed in until the first of February.
• You get 7 credit points.
• Master students are eligible.
• Registration: Please send an email to npfeifer at mpi-inf.mpg.de (topic: seminar Viral Bioinformatics)

Course overview

Every student will give a 45 minute presentation on the assigned topic and will also hand in a report of 10 - 15 pages. This seminar will center on the issue of viral diversity and how to concur it when preventing (vaccination) and curing (drug therapy) viral infections. The seminar will be structured into the following sections:

1. Introduction (will be given by Nico Pfeifer on Dec. 10 at 2 p.m. in room 21)
2. Virus-host interactions
3. Diversity of viral pathogens and its relevance for human infections
4. Fight of the virus against the immune system of the host
4.1 Analysis of viral epitopes
4.2 Bioinformatics support for vaccine development
5. Fight of the virus against drug therapy - HIV
5.1 Viral drug resistances
5.2 Assessing the efficacy of combination drug therapies
5.3 Beyond HIV
6. Conclusions and perspectives (will be given by Nico Pfeifer or Thomas Lengauer)

Sections 5.1 and 5.2 will center around HIV, where the technology is most advanced. Other chapters will treat viral infections, in general, with some emphasis on HIV, HCV, HBV and influenza.

Course material

Course material will be available here: password protected area.