Dr Fabio Luciani
My Research Interests | Publications | Collaborations
 | About me
I am a physicist with interest in theoretical biology. I work in Sydney at the University of New South Wales (Australia) in the School of Medical Sciences.
My main interest is in modelling of infectious diseases and assessing the role of the host-pathogen interactions in infection dynamics. I develop analytical and numerical methods to quantify the transmission and evolution of infectious diseases, and statistical tools for inference of parameter values from experimental and epidemiological data (see also publications).
I recently moved within the Professor Lloyd’s group at the Centre for Infection and Inflammation Research (CIIR). My role within this group is to provide quantitative and statistical analysis of data on Hepatitis C.
Please, have a look at my Publications or my CV. |
My Research Interests
Viral evolution and host pathogen interactions
My work concerns the modeling of HCV within host evolution.
I am also interested at the population level and in understanding the role of host heterogeneity in driving viral evolution. For instance, the role of MHC frequency distribution and its effect in determining the probability of escape mutants.
HCV
My work at the centre for inflammation and immunity is mainly focussed in assisting the HCV research group (Prof. Lloyd) in analysing experimental data of HCV. In particular, I am working on the analysis of HITS cohort....(email me if you want to know more about it)
Antigen processing and Proteasome
I am particularly interested in the mechanism of antigen processing and presentation in the context of MHC class I response. See also my
publications.
To date I am working on a project in collaboration with Weisnan Chen on the dynamical evolution of immunodominance in T cell responses against influenza virus in mice.
Molecular epidemiology
I am working on modeling the transmission dynamics of mycobacterium Tuberculosis in collaboration with Dr. Mark Tanaka at the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences UNSW.
We are applying Approximate Bayesian Computations (ABC) methods to estimate the transmission dynamics and relative fitness of drug resistant strains of mycobacterium tuberculosis
Publications
Articles (Peer-reviewed)
Luciani F, Sisson SA, Jiang H, Francis AR, Tanaka MM.
The epidemiological fitness cost of drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, PNAS. Epub 2008 Aug 10.
[Original article; Journal impact factor 9.38 and the Eigenfactor is 1.7 for 2008]
Tang C, Reyes JF,
Luciani F, Francis AR, Tanaka MM.
spolTools: online utilities for analyzing spoligotypes of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex.
Bioinformatics. 2008 Oct 15;24(20):2414-5. Epub 2008 Aug 18. [Original article; Journal impact factor 5.039 (2007)]
(PDF)
Mishto M.,
Luciani F., Holzhütter H.G., Bellavista E., Santoro A., Textoris-Taube K., Franceschi C., Kloetzel P.M., Zaikin A.
Proteasome modelling algorithm to predict
in vitro kinetics of 20S proteasome degradation. J Mol Biol. 2008 Apr 11;377(5):1607-17.
(PDF)
Pomati F., Orlandi C., Clerici M.,
Luciani F., Zuccato E.
Effects and interactions in an environmentally relevant mixture of pharmaceuticals
Toxicological Sciences. 2007 Nov 28; [Epub ahead of print], Impact Factor 3.6 (PDF)
Luciani F., Francis A., Tanaka M.
Interpreting genotype cluster sizes of
Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates typed with IS6110 and Spoligotyping. Accepted for publication, November 2007 in
Infections, Genetics and Evolution. Impact Factor (expected to be > 3.5). (PDF)
Tanaka M., Francis A.,
Luciani F., Sisson S.
Using approximate Bayesian computation to estimate tuberculosis transmission parameters from genotype data. Genetics 2006 Jul;173(3):1511-20. Impact Factor: 4.289.
(PDF)
Luciani F, Keşmir C., Mishto M, Or-Guil M., De Boer RJ.
A mathematical model of protein degradation by the proteasome. Biophysical Journal, 2005. 88 (April): p. 1-11. Impact Factor: 4.507
(PDF)
Luciani F., Turchetti G., Valensin S., Bonafe M., Franceschi C.
A stochastic model for the clonal expansion of cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Ricciardi L.M. and Sato S. (eds.) Special Issue on BIOCOMP 2002, p. 439-453. SCMJ, Vol. 58, No. 2, 2003. JAMS, Osaka.
Luciani F., Valensin S., Vescovini R., Sansoni P., Fagnoni F., Franceschi C., Bonafe M., Turchetti G.
A stochastic model for the CD8+ T cell dynamics in human Immunosenescence: implications for Survival and Longevity. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2001 Dec 21; 213(4):587-97. Impact Factor: 1.959
Luciani F, Turchetti G., Franceschi C., Valensin S.
A mathematical model for the Immunosenescence. Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum May-Aug;94(2):305-18, 2001. Impact Factor: 0.413
Colloborations
I collaborate with other theoreticians and also experimental scientistsI collaborate with
Dr Michele Mishto working on proteasome degradation. Michele is at the Humboldt University of Berlin in the Peter Kloetzel Lab
Samuel Alizon on nested model for rapidly mutating viruses (
Samuel’s website)
I work with
Alexei Zaikin
Weisan Chen and
Ken Pang (visit their website)
Mark Tanaka (
visit their website). I previously worked with
Rob de Boer and
Can Kesmir
If you want to collaborate or ask some questions, please email me