We will approach the modeling of the development of pneumonia and its resolution in response to treatment using the conceptual framework of bifurcation theory. In the simplest case, with only two states, the model would distinguish a state with low bacterial load and high lung function from one with a high bacterial load and low lung function. The major challenge in this framework is to determine how to express the control parameter in terms of biological variables pertinent to pneumonia pathogenesis. We will pursue an agnostic modeling approach to the challenge of obtaining insight from these high-dimensional data. Because of the complexity of the problem, we will iteratively apply a variety of cutting-edge methods from systems biology, data science, dynamical systems, and ecology. Predictive biomarkers developed in the Modeling Core will then be validated in a prospective confirmatory cohort of patients in whom analogous data will be generated.
The likelihood of different clinical outcomes for each phenotype