Immune system modeling

This laboratory specializes in mathematical modeling of the immune system, and is developing a comprehensive model of cytokine responses to vaccines so that these responses can be modeled by computer simulation in silico. Dr. Kepler, recently funded by the Southeastern Regional Center of Excellence in Emerging Infections and Biodefense (SERCEB) to provide computational biology services to the entire region, has become a major asset to SERCEB investigators.

Dr. Kepler’s lab also works with Dr. Louise Markert in the DHVI to model immune reconstitution in children treated with thymus transplantation for DiGeorge Syndrome. In this effort, he will correlate actual analyses of T cell receptor heterogeneity with predicted levels of T cell receptor rearrangement, to be able to develop algorithms and predictive models for treatment outcome.

With the HIV Vaccine Development team, Dr. Kepler is analyzing the neutralizing antibody responses induced by HVI AIDS vaccine candidates to determine why broadly reactive neutralizing antibodies are so difficult to induce, and to devise new strategies to solve this problem.