America's best college towns, as voted on by the writers at BOK

1. Baldwinsville, NY
2. Syracuse, NY
3. Geneseo, NY
4. Rochester, NY
5. Nowhere in Virginia

I do mathematical modeling.  This means I study a biological system, and then find out how to apply mathematics to solve problems.  For instance, Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS) is a cancer of the connective tissue commonly caused by HHV-8.  Generally speaking, a healthy immune system can fight off HHV-8 upon initial contact.  However, it is believed that HIV-1 growth factors activate B-cells latently infected with HHV-8, an event stimulating the overall growth of HHV-8, and thus establishing a tie between HIV-1 and HHV-8.  In sub-Saharan Africa, a region where HIV-1 is endemic, lesions and other symptoms caused by KS are widely (and mistakenly) attributed to HIV infection.

Antiretroviral treatment in co-infected patients has been shown to drastically reduce, and in some cases even eliminate KS.  Curiously, the same treatment in patients without the HIV infection has no effect on KS.  Using this information, my goal (and the goal of my collaborators) is to examine co-infection dynamics at the population level (versus the immune level), and determine ideal conditions for minimizing co-infection outbreaks.

In our case, this problem is less about the physiological impact that antiretroviral treatment has on the co-infection, and more about the social impact of finding ways to provide treatment, as well as education, on preventative measures.