Evolutionary Determinants of Genetic Variation in Susceptibility to Infectious Diseases in Humans

Although genetic variation among humans in their susceptibility to infectious diseases has long been appreciated, little focus has been devoted to identifying patterns in levels of variation in susceptibility to different diseases. Levels of genetic variation in susceptibility associated with 40 human infectious diseases were assessed by a survey of studies on both pedigree-based quantitative variation, as well as studies on different classes of marker alleles. These estimates were correlated with pathogen traits, epidemiological characteristics, and effectiveness of the human immune response. The strongest predictors of levels of genetic variation in susceptibility were disease characteristics negatively associated with immune effectiveness. High levels of genetic variation were associated with diseases with long infectious periods and for which vaccine development attempts have been unsuccessful. These findings are consistent with predictions based on theoretical models incorporating fitness costs associated with the different types of resistance mechanisms. An appreciation of these observed patterns will be a valuable tool in directing future research given that genetic variation in disease susceptibility has large implications for vaccine development and epidemiology

GridPP: development of the UK computing Grid for particle physics

The GridPP Collaboration is building a UK computing Grid for particle physics, as part of the international effort towards computing for the Large Hadron Collider. The project, funded by the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), began in September 2001 and completed its first phase 3 years later. GridPP is a collaboration of approximately 100 researchers in 19 UK university particle physics groups, the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils and CERN, reflecting the strategic importance of the project. In collaboration with other European and US efforts, the first phase of the project demonstrated the feasibility of developing, deploying and operating a Grid-based computing system to meet the UK needs of the Large Hadron Collider experiments. This note describes the work undertaken to achieve this goal