title: Viral evolution: beyond drift and shift.
abstract: Technological advances have allowed aspects of viral evolution to be explored at unprecedented scales. As a consequence, new quantitative approaches are needed to investigate features of viral evolution that fall outside traditional areas of study, such as antigenic evolution. We examine three areas of viral evolution where tools from disciplines such as statistical physics, topology, and information theory have been used recently as quantitative frameworks for large-scale studies and, in some cases, suggest a novel theoretical approach to a problem. Ongoing interaction among these disciplines with biology is necessary so that experimental researchers can determine which quantitative tools are right for them and quantitative researchers can learn which aspects of viral evolution can be understood and advanced with their approaches.
authors.affiliation: Tisch Cancer Institute, Departments of Medicine and Pathology, 1190 5th Ave, New York, NY 10029, United States. Electronic address: benjamin.greenbaum@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Benjamin D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Greenbaum
authors.affiliation: Center for Genomics & Systems Biology, Department of Biology, and Global Institute of Public Health, New York University, 100 Washington Place, 1009 Silver Center, New York, NY 10003, United States.
authors.forename: Elodie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ghedin
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D056808:Biostatistics / Q000379:methods; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014780:Viruses / Q000235:genetics*