Brief History, Research interests, Teaching, Graduate Projects, Administration, Publications.

John Murray

            

Associate Professor:

School of Mathematics and Statistics, and

National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research

Office:

Room 3061, The Red Centre

Phone:

+61 2 9385 7042

Fax:

+61 2 9385 7123

Email:

 J.Murray@unsw.edu.au

Mail:

 School of Mathematics and Statistics


The University of New South Wales
UNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052, Australia

Brief History

BSc (Hons) from University of New South Wales (1976); MSc from University of New South Wales (1978); PhD from University of Washington (1984); Lecturer then Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales (1983-present); Visiting Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (1999-2000).

Research Interests

  • Biomathematics
    • The complex dynamical system of the immune system, particularly in its interaction with infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis B.
    • Epidemiology of infectious diseases in the community and the effects of interventions. These include HIV and hepatitis C in injecting drug users, and HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Optimal control
    • Optimal scheduling of cancer chemotherapy for this stochastic system.

Presentations at 4th International AIDS Society Conference, Sydney, July 2007

John Murray presented results from a clinical trial of the drug raltegravir belonging to a new class of HIV antiretroviral drugs, integrase inhibitors at the recent AIDS conference attended by 6,000 registrants. Patients on this drug had faster decrease in virus than standard regimens. Using mathematical modelling Dr Murray was able to describe possible infection processes that could explain this behaviour. His talk can be found at: http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=2239

These findings were of considerable interest, being reported in several news reports, including interviews with New Scientist and Reuters Health:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526154.400-new-hiv-treatments-will-fight-growing-drug-resistance.html

http://www.medicalimagingmag.com/reuters_article.asp?id=20070724clin019.html

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/E42013C2-570D-4661-AD0F-5DD72E2FC20A.asp

http://www.medpagetoday.com/StateRequiredCME/HIVAIDS/tb/6243

 

John Murray’s PhD student Greg Londish reported results of mathematical modelling work on the effects of male circumcision on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. Recent trials in Africa have discovered that male circumcision can reduce transmission from infected women by 60%. Serious consideration is now being given to increasing levels of male circumcision in sub-Saharan African countries as a way of reducing the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The webcast of this presentation can be found at:

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=detail&hc=2249

These findings were reported at: http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/174CC90A-5EC0-4E56-AF26-5B164A60353D.asp

Teaching

  • MATH1151 Mathematicals for Finance

 

Graduate Projects

These can cover a wide array of problems in mathematical biology, and can usually be tailored to suit the student’s particular interests and skills. The projects generally involve working on data from, and collaborating with researchers from, a number of Australian and international research centres, in particular the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research. Students should have a strong undergraduate record in either a quantitative or biomedical area, with a willingness to learn the other aspects of this field.

Some specific projects are:

  • Optimal incorporation of information during treatment of cancer.
  • Scheduling changes to HIV antiretroviral therapy for resource poor countries.
  • The dynamics of HIV and hepatitis B virus infections.

General information on postgraduate study is available at

http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/honpg/future/research/pgfutureresearch.html

Administration

  • Member of the Primary HIV Infection Advisory Committee

 

Selected Recent Publications

  • Murray, JM, Purcell, RH, Wieland, SF, The half-life of hepatitis B virions, Hepatology, 44 (2006), 1117-1121.
  • Murray, JM, Wieland, SF, Purcell, RH, Chisari, FV, Dynamics of hepatitis B virus clearance in chimpanzees, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 102 (2005), 17780-17785.
  • Murray, JM,  Perelson, AS. Human immunodeficiency virus: quasi-species and drug resistance. Multiscale Modeling and Simulation, 3 (2005) 300-311.
  • Macpherson, JL, Boyd, MP, Arndt, AJ, Todd, AV, Fanning GC, Ely, JA, Elliott, F, Knop, A, Raponi, M, Murray, J, Gerlach, W, Sun, LQ, Penny, R, Symonds, GP, Carr, A, Cooper, DA. Long-term survival and concomitant gene expression of ribozyme-transduced CD4+ T lymphocytes. Journal of Gene Medicine, 7 (2005) 552-564.
  • Murray, JM, Kaufmann GR, Hodgkin, PD, Lewin, SR, Kelleher, AD, Davenport, MP, Zaunders, JJ. Naïve T cells are maintained by thymic output in early ages but by proliferation without phenotypic change after age twenty. Immunology and Cell Biology, 81 (2003) 487-495.
  • Murray, JM, Law, MG, Gao, Z, Kaldor, JM, The impact of behavioural changes on the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C among injecting drug users. International Journal of Epidemiology. 32 (2003), 708-714.
  • Murray, JM. Changing transmission fitness of drug resistant human immunodeficiency virus against a background of evolving antiretroviral therapy. Journal of Infectious Diseases. 188 (2003) 1258.
  • Murray, JM, Coldman, AJ. The effect of heterogeneity on optimal regimens in cancer chemotherapy. Mathematical Biosciences. 185 (2003) 73-87.
  • Whalley, SA, Murray, JM, Brown, D, Webster, GJM, Emery, VC, Dusheiko, GM, Perelson, AS. Kinetics of acute hepatitis B virus infection in humans. The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 193 (2001) 847-853.
  • Kaufmann, GR, Zaunders, J, Murray, J, Kelleher, AD, Lewin, SR, Solomon, A, Smith, D, Cooper, DA. Relative significance of different pathways of immune reconstitution in HIV type 1 infection as estimated by mathematical modelling. AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, 17 (2001) 147-159.
  • Coldman, AJ, Murray, JM. Optimal control for a stochastic model of cancer chemotherapy. Mathematical Biosciences, 168 (2000) 187-20.

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