The long-term goals of this research are to better understand the pathogenicity of the human influenza Virus, (a Class C Priority Pathogen). This is to be done by developing new and improving older methods of analysis as, for example by trying, on the basis of amino acid sequences alone, to correctly predict from which group of currently circulating influenza viruses the next epidemic will emerge. The method needs improvement and we expect to show how. Also one may determine, given the tree for the influenza isolates and the location (region) where the virus was isolated, how many times a virus migrated, for example, from Hong Kong to the US to account for where they are now. Such analyses should give a network that should show such things as the influenza migrating from one city to another to yet another, knowledge that should be useful in stopping an epidemic virus spreading successively across the globe. This will be done by improving features of Slatkin and Madisson's method. At the same time this research should lead to better estimates of the ancestral sequences by finding better ways to resolve the choices, where the method presents alternative equally good choices. The accomplishment of these aims should improve the ability of the field to provide better treatment and better vaccines in the flight against human influenza. ? ?
| Wallace, Robert G; Fitch, Walter M (2008) Influenza A H5N1 immigration is filtered out at some international borders. PLoS One 3:e1697 |
| Wallace, Robert G; Hodac, Hoangminh; Lathrop, Richard H et al. (2007) A statistical phylogeography of influenza A H5N1. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104:4473-8 |
