I focus on understanding host-virus interactions. In the case of HIV/AIDS,
current antiretroviral therapies are not curative. Extensive efforts are ongoing therefore to devise new strategies for eliciting cure. Recently, in a major advance, an experimental study observed that a combination of latency reversal agents and broadly neutralizing antibodies induced long-term remission of HIV infection although the treatments failed individually. A question, of great current interest, follows: Why does the combination therapy succeed while the individual drugs fail?In this work, we answer this question by constructing a mathematical model (coupled nonlinear ODEs) incorporating the effects of interventions on host immune cells. Using the framework, we predict optimal treatment strategies that would further improve the chances of achieving a cure for HIV, which future experiments would test.
