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Statistical physics of immune-viral co-evolution

Objective

The immune system within each individual host destroys viruses, which manage to escape immunity on the global scale. Recent experiments show population-level responses of both immune repertoires and viruses, and a history dependence of their functional phenotypes. This constrained long-term co-evolution of immune receptor and viral populations is a stochastic many-body problem occurring at many scales, in which the response emerges based on the past states of both the repertoire and viral populations. STRUGGLE infers the details of viral-immune receptor interactions from functional datasets to obtain a predictive statistical model of co-evolution between immune repertoires and viruses.

STRUGGLE covers the many scales of immune-virus interactions: from the molecular level, analyzing high-throughput mutational screens of libraries of antibodies binding a given antigen, through the population-level response of immune repertoires, analyzing next-generation sequencing of vaccine-stimulated whole repertoires, to the population level, modeling the long term co-evolution of both repertoires and viruses.

STRUGGLE combines a statistical data analysis approach with cross-scale many-body physics to:
- build a molecular model for antigen-receptor binding;
- learn statistical models for repertoire-level response to viral antigen stimulation;
- validate dynamical models of interactions between antigen and immune receptors;
- theoretically evaluate the predictive power of the immune system and viruses;
- and predict virus strains and immune responses based on past infections.

The outcomes of STRUGGLE include the quantitative characterization of the human T-cell response to flu vaccines, with implications for vaccination strategies, and the trout B-cell response to life-threatening rhabdoviruses, which aids vaccine design for fish, with wide use in agriculture. The statistical properties of the co-evolutionary process are needed for informed development of immunotherapies.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2016-COG

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Host institution

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 909 750,00
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 909 750,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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