Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Other Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Other Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology
Modeling Human Immune Response To The Lyme Disease-Causing Bacteria, Yevhen Rutovytskyy
Modeling Human Immune Response To The Lyme Disease-Causing Bacteria, Yevhen Rutovytskyy
Honors Scholar Theses
The purpose of this project is to develop and analyze a mathematical model
for the pathogen-host interaction that occurs during early Lyme disease.
Based on the known biophysics of motility of Borrelia burgdorferi and a
simple model for the immune response, a PDE model was created which tracks
the time evolution of the concentrations of bacteria and activated immune
cells in the dermis. We assume that a tick bite inoculates a highly
localized population of bacteria into the dermis. These bacteria can
multiply and migrate. The diffusive nature of the migration is assumed and
modeled using the heat equation. Bacteria …