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Current Research
I study viral dynamics. I use mathematical models to understand mechanisms of disease spread (within and between hosts), pathogenesis, and evolution. Most of my research focuses on HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Questions I'm interested in include: What properties of antiretroviral therapy determine efficacy? When is drug resistance likely to emerge ? What are the dynamics of the reservoir of latently infected cells that sustain infection even with potent drugs? What are the mechanisms of CD4 T cell decline? What is the role of immune activation in viral pathogenesis?
Models and mechanisms for understanding viral dynamics are increasingly finding applications outside traditional virology. They can be used to study the dynamics of behaviors, to help predict and interevene in their spread. Previous projects I've worked on have applied infectious disease models to social contagion.
In the past I've used mathematical models to understand how our body maintains iron homeostasis and how cyanobacteria, the first multi-cellular organism, create a precise pattern of differentiated cells. I also spent a few years studying MRI and researching techniques to use nanoparticles to image specific molecular targets.
If you are a Harvard or MIT student looking to do a research project, senior thesis or rotation in the Nowak lab, feel free to contact me at the address above. |
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Education
2007 - Present : PhD Candidate, Biophysics Program, Harvard University
2003-2007 : BS, Physics. Queen's University, Canada. |
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Publications
- Rosenbloom DIS*, Hill AL*, Rabi SA*, Siliciano RF, Nowak MA (2012). Antiretroviral dynamics determines HIV evolution and predicts therapy outcome. Nat Med, 18 (9) , 1378-1385. (Full Text)
- Covered by Harvard Gazette, Johns Hopkins Medicine News, Positively Aware
- Hill AL, Rosenbloom DIS, Nowak MA (2012). Evolutionary dynamics of HIV at multiple spatial and temporal scales. J Mol Med, 90 (5), 543-561. (Full Text)
- Thankachan P, Kalasurmath S, Hill AL, Thomas T, Bhat K, Kurpad AV (2012) A mathematical model for the hemoglobin response to iron intake, based on iron absorption measurements from habitually consumed Indian meals. Eur J Clin Nutr, 66 (4), 481-487. (Full Text)
- Hill AL, Rand DG, Nowak MA, Christakis NC (2010) Infectious disease modeling of social contagion in networks. PLoS Computational Biology, 6 (11). (Full Text)
- Covered by Harvard Gazette, Boston Globe
- Hill AL*, Rand DG*, Nowak MA, Christakis NC (2010)
Emotions as infectious diseases in a large social network:
the SISa model. Proc Roy Soc B, 277 (1701).
(Full Text)
- Covered by Wired Science
- Aptekar JW, Cassidy MC, Johnson AC, Barton RA, Lee M, Ogier AC, Vo C, Anahtar MN, Ren Y, Bhatia SN, Ramanathan C, Cory DG, Hill AL, Mair RW, Rosen MS, Walsworth RL and Marcus CM (2009) Silicon nanoparticles as hyperpolarized magnetic resonance imaging agents. ACS Nano, 3 (12), 4003- 4008. (PDF)
- Allard JF, Hill AL, Rutenburg AD (2007) Heterocyst pattern without patterning proteins in cyanobacterial filaments. Developmental Biology, 312 427-434. (PDF)
[* Joint first authorship] |
Other popular press coverage
Our work on modeling the HIV latent reservoir, presented at CROI 2013 : Nature Medicine News
Our Grand Challenges Explorations Grant from the Gates Foundation: Harvard Crimson
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Collaborators
Daniel Rosenbloom, David Rand, Nicholas Christakis, Bob Siliciano, Ali Rabi, Pan-Pan Jiang, Anura Kurpad, Prashanth Thankachan, Ron Walsworth, Chris Bowen, Steven Beyea, Andrew Rutenberg |
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