Interactions between viruses and the immune system of an infected patient have a strong influence on both organisms. After infection, the human immune system aims to improve its ability to detect and combat the respective virus while the pathogen can develop escape mutations that allow him to evade these immune responses. If these mutations also do not alter the ‘viral fitness’ (its ability to replicate and infect more cells), this viral quasispecies will have an evolutionary advantage over the ancestral virus, will finally outnumber him and force the human immune system to adapt its response again.
With the overall aim to improve future antiviral therapies and vaccines, our group aims to
1. better understand these host-virus interactions,
2. implement novel techniques to rapidly detect viral escape and
3. develop strategies that hamper viral escape.
