Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

The Global Dynamics of HPV and Cervical Cancer with an Immune Response

Cervical cancer is the second leading type of cancer in women and is often caused by the Human Papilloma virus (HPV). The persistence of high-risk HPV infection leads to precancerous lesions, which then can become malignant. Some HPV infections can be cleared by a healthy immune response. The goal of this project is to study the long-term dynamics of a system of ordinary differential equations which describes the dynamics of an HPV infection under an immune response. Using Lyapunov Stability Theory, we fully describe the long-term dynamics of several sub-models, including the disease-only sub-model and the sub-model of HPV with an immune response. In the latter sub-model, we see that the recruitment terms for an antibody and immune cell response play an important role in reducing the viral load. We conclude with numerical simulations of the full model and a discussion of biological implications with future work.