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“Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a blood-borne infection that can lead to progressive liver failure, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and death. In developed countries, the majority of HCV infections are transmitted via injecting drug users (IDUs). Despite effective antiviral treatment for HCV, very few active IDUs are treated. Reluctance to treat is partially due to the risk of reinfection. We develop a mathematical

model of HCV transmission amongst active IDUs, and examine the potential effect of antiviral treatment. As most mathematical CB-839 models of interventions utilise a treatment function proportional to the infected population, but many policy implementations set fixed yearly targets for specific numbers treated, we study the effects of using two different treatment terms: annually treating a proportion of infecteds or a fixed number of infecteds. We examine the behaviour of the two treatment models and find different bifurcation behaviours in each case. We calculate analytical solutions for the treatment level needed for disease clearance or control, and observe that achievable levels of treatment can result in control or eradication across a wide range of prevalence levels. Finally, we calculate the sensitivity of the critical treatment threshold to the model parameters, and find that for a given observed prevalence, the injecting

duration and infection risk play learn more the most important role in determining the treatment level needed. By contrast, the sensitivity analysis indicates the presence (or absence) of immunity does not alter the treatment threshold. We conclude by discussing the public health

science implications of this work, and comment on the importance and feasibility of utilising treatment as prevention for HCV spread amongst IDUs. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“A population of [PSI+] Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells can be cured of the [PSI+] prion by the addition of guanidine hydrochloride (GdnHCl). In this paper we extend existing nucleated polymerisation simulation models to investigate the mechanisms that might underlie curing. Our results are consistent with the belief that prions are dispersed through the cells at division following GdnHCl addition. A key feature of the simulation model is that the probability that a polymer is transmitted from mother to daughter during cell division is dependent upon the length of the polymer. The model is able to reproduce the essential features of data from several different experimental protocols involving addition and removal of GdnHCl. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“This article considers a dynamic spatially lumped model for brain energy metabolism and proposes to use the results of a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based flux balance analysis to estimate the kinetic model parameters.