Biology Seminar by Dr. Shingo Iwami on December 22, 2020

In his seminar Dr. Iwami (Kyushu University) presented his mathematical model for coronavirus (新型コロナウイルス) in patients. The aim of the project was to determine why some papers disagreed on the efficacy of certain antiviral drugs to treat the coronavirus. Because the available data was limited, only a simple mathematical model was considered. The mathematical model only represents the fraction of cells remaining to be infected and the amount of virus. The curve for the virus in the model was fitted to the data of virus in the nasal swab of patients. From this analysis, Dr. Iwami's group could separate the patients into 3 types: with either slow, medium or fast decay of virus. He showed that in his model, only early treatment can be effective for all decay types. This can be one reason why two different clinical trials can find different results: if one trial includes late treatment then it can appear that the treatment is not effective. From the mathematical model, he suggested some changes in the criteria for patient inclusion into clinical trials to improve the ability to detect statistically significant effects for the antiviral drug. The seminar was very well attended, with many questions and discussions. Thank you Dr. Iwami for your great talk!

- Catherine Beauchemin (iTHEMS)