Mathematical Modeling of Immune Responses to Hepatitis C Virus Infection

• Main Author: Ramirez, Ivan
• Format: Others
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2014
• Subjects: hepatitis C virus; sensitivity analysis; optimal control; inverse problem; Applied Mathematics; Mathematics
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2425; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3787&context=etd

An existing mathematical model of ordinary differential equations was studied to better understand the interactions between hepatitis C virus (HCV) and the immune system cells in the human body. Three possible qualitative scenarios were explored: dominant CTL response, dominant antibody response, and coexistence. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis was carried out to rank model parameters for each of these scenarios. Therapy was addressed as an optimal control problem. Numerical solutions of optimal controls were computed using a forward-backward sweep scheme for each scenario. Model parameters were estimated using ordinary least squares fitting from longitudinal data (serum HCV RNA measurements) given in reported literature.