James Koopman Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Michigan; Carl Simon, Complex Systems, Math, Public Policy, University of Michigan

ABSTRACT:
Before the emergence of escape mutants that now threaten pandemic control, we constructed and analyzed the first model integrating immune waning and escape mutations. In the model, escape mutants were not problematic until a year into the pandemic. After they emerged, vaccination could worsen the pandemic. We examined four patterns by which existing escape mutants could stimulate further escape mutations. These provide insights in how to pursue epitope (the part of an antigen recognized by the immune system) specific model analyses. The time is ripe for this advance. The pandemic has unveiled new high-throughput methods to characterize immunity at an epitope specific and B and T cell specific levels. We will present our model and discuss how it could integrate systems immunology and systems epidemiology.