This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

Kathleen Hoffman, professor of mathematics and statistics, thrives on solving puzzles. She has spent her career working to create and refine mathematical models of notoriously complex biological systems. For the last decade, she and colleague Katharine Gurski at Howard University have been working together to model the spread of HIV. Now, the pair has received two new grants to support their work.

Funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will support their efforts to improve the model of how HIV spreads between people. A grant from the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM) will support work to model how HIV infects cells in the body and develops resistance to drug treatments.

Pieces of the puzzle

The CURM grant will support undergraduates in Hoffman and Gurski’s labs to model how HIV behaves inside the body. In particular, they want to know how it responds to a common treatment known as highly-active anti-retroviral treatment (HAART). 

“Some strains of HIV are less likely to respond to treatment,” Hoffman says, “and when patients don’t follow the treatment regimen carefully, that can also lead to resistance.” If a person’s HIV becomes resistant to their current treatment, they can more easily pass the infection to others. So a better understanding of the presence of drug resistance in the population is critical to building accurate population-based models of HIV spread. 

Hoffman enjoys working with undergraduates to give them exposure to research. Rebecca Laws ’21, mathematics, and Michael Klos ’21, mathematics, will work with her on this project. 

“How can you expect people to enjoy research, if they don’t know what it is?” Hoffman asks. She says being accountable to students and their projects also helps keep her own research on track. “It accomplishes small but meaningful things toward my research that I might not do if I wasn’t working with a student,” she says. “They each contribute their own piece of the puzzle.”

Refining the model

Hoffman and Gurski’s previous collaboration on an HIV-transmission model included factors like demographic information and sexual behavior. Through their new NSF grant they will make the model more precise by incorporating two more major factors. They will account for the role of long-term relationships and usage of PrEP, a drug that reduces one’s risk of contracting HIV when taken every day. Hoffman’s Ph.D. student, Sylvia Gutowska, is taking the lead on the PrEP modeling.

Classical models of disease spread treat people “basically like molecules in a gas, where they’re moving all over the place, and there’s some probability that they will touch each other. And then, if they touch each other, there’s some probability that one will pass the infection to the other,” Hoffman says. “That’s the underlying assumption of all of these models.”

But the analogy between people and molecules breaks down when you start looking at complex human behaviors. For example, long-term partnerships dramatically reduce the likelihood of risky encounters between individuals. 

Using PrEP adds more complexity. When taken regularly, PrEP reduces the likelihood of a person passing the disease to someone else. But research shows that if someone is taking PrEP, they are also more likely to behave in riskier ways. And if they forget to take their daily dose, they’re at higher risk again temporarily.

These factors “make the modeling way more complicated from a mathematical perspective,” Hoffman says. Incorporating those two parameters will be the primary work of the NSF grant.

Hoffman and Gurski also want to validate the new model they develop. To do that, they’ll give the model real data from 2005 on disease rates, and then see how well it is able to predict disease rates a few years later (e.g. 2010 and 2015). Because these data already exist, they’ll be able to compare the real data to the model’s predictions.

Informing disease prevention

Once they have an upgraded model, the researchers can test individual parameters in the model to see which would have the biggest effects on the level of disease in a population. This can then inform public health decisions.

“By measuring the sensitivity of the parameters, it’s kind of like looking for the biggest bang for your buck in terms of resource allocation,” Hoffman explains. “For instance, if you have money to put toward an education campaign, should you put it toward making sure people take PrEP diligently? Or will it have more of an impact if you put it toward promoting condom use? Which will have a bigger impact on decreasing the amount of disease in society? That’s the kind of question this kind of work can usually answer, if the model is accurate.”

But even figuring out what the parameters are to begin with can be very difficult. The work goes way beyond math into HIV biology and even the sociology and psychology behind people’s behavior and relationships.

It’s hard, “but what I like about science and research is the fact that I’m not constrained by siloes. Sometimes I have to go read literature in the psychology and sociology fields, and I have to read biology papers that I struggle through,” Hoffman says. “That’s why I like it, because I never know what I’m going to need to learn next.”

Banner image: UMBC Biological Sciences Building. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

This story was written by Megan Hanks and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

UMBC researchers will collaborate with the Chicago-based MxD to develop a curriculum and online platform for manufacturing professionals to increase their cybersecurity skills and to protect manufacturing plants from cyber breaches. The work is funded by a $650,000 grant from the Office of Economic Adjustment, under the U.S. Department of Defense. 

MxD is one of 14 federally-supported institutes known collectively as Manufacturing USA. It has awarded millions of dollars to research and development projects across 35 states to advance U.S. manufacturing practices and increase global competitiveness. This UMBC collaboration will be the first initiative focused on increasing manufacturing workers’ knowledge of cybersecurity.

The content of this program is completely new, as there are no existing platforms that focus on the intersection of cybersecurity and manufacturing, says Nilanjan Banerjee, principal investigator on the grant. 

Banerjee, professor of computer science and electrical engineering (CSEE) at UMBC, shares, “The program will accelerate training of practitioners in the manufacturing industry in cybersecurity. It will also expand UMBC’s impact on cybersecurity education in the manufacturing sector.”

Intersection of cyber and manufacturing

Banerjee will collaborate with a number of colleagues at UMBC to develop a curriculum tailored for people who already work in the manufacturing industry. Project co-PIs include Donna Ruginski, executive director of cybersecurity initiatives at UMBC, and Keith J Bowman, dean of UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology. Alan Sherman, professor of CSEE; Linda Olivia, assistant professor of education; and Megean Garvin, director of research and assessment for the Maryland Center for Computing Education, will assess the curriculum developed to ensure it meets program goals.

Bowman helped establish the connections between UMBC and MxD, and is eager to watch the work develop. “This project fully leverages MxD, UMBC Training Centers, and UMBC assets in cybersecurity, manufacturing, and training,” says Bowman. “I have known MxD team members, including Federico Sciammarella, president and chief technology officer of MxD, ever since its origins, and I look forward to building on this collaboration.”

The first step of the multi-phased project will identify the skills most needed to protect manufacturing facilities from cyberattacks on their computer systems and machinery. UMBC and MxD will create a short-term training program for manufacturing professionals to develop these skills. 

“People will come out of this program with a certification that shows they have the tools to be successful in a cybersecurity role in manufacturing,” said Lizabeth Stuck, senior director of MxD Learn, the institute’s workforce development arm. “This has the dual benefit of upskilling workers who may be sidelined during the COVID-19 crisis and increasing the security of U.S. manufacturers from cyber-attacks.”

Addressing current needs

Banerjee explains that the recent COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased unemployment and a need for more opportunities for workers to quickly expand their skill sets. With this in mind, the program will be designed for workers to complete in less than a year and through a web-based format.

For maximum flexibility, the platform will offer both synchronous and asynchronous material. It will be launched and led by UMBC Training Centers, a not-for-profit owned by UMBC that offers professional and technical training in areas such as cybersecurity, project management, and leadership and innovation. The platform will likely launch in late January 2021. 

“This program will have a direct impact on the Defense Industrial Base Supply Chain,” says Ruginski. “It will create a robust workforce that has the cybersecurity skills required to assist companies in staying secure in the fast-paced cybersecurity manufacturing industry.”

Banner image: Nilanjan Banerjee. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.