Biography:

Dr. Nelson received his Ph.D. degree from the Physics Department at the University of Texas at Austin, working under Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine on the application of bifurcation theory to the question of the origin of biomolecular chirality. While and after completing his degree he worked on models of the dynamics of virus and immune system cells in AIDS at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He joined the LGD in 1993, initially studying cellular immunology under a training grant, and then working for the operational and technical support contractor (currently SAIC-Frederick ) with a primary focus on the genetic epidemiology of AIDS.

Research:

1. Host genetic epidemiology of AIDS and other infectious diseases
2. Mathematics of haplotype inference
3. Mechanisms of immune escape in early HIV infection

Publications:

Kondepudi, D.K. and Nelson, G.W.: Chiral symmetry breaking in nonequilbrium systems. Phys. Rev. Lett . 50: 1023, 1983.

Kondepudi, D.K. and Nelson, G.W.: Weak neutral currents and the origin of biomolecular chirality. Nature 314: 438, 1985. [ PDF ]

Nelson, G.W. and Perelson, A.S.: Immune evasion by slow replicating HIV strains: Significance in AIDS latency. J. AIDS 5: 82, 1992.

Winkler, C., Modi, W., Smith, M. W., Nelson, G. W., Wu, X., Carrington, M., Dean, M., Honjo, T., Tashiro, K., Yabe, D., Buchbinder, S., Vittinghoff, E., Goedert, J. J., O'Brien, T. R., Jacobson, L. P., Detels, R., Donfield, S., Willoughby, A., Gomperts, E., Vlahov, D., Phair, J., ALIVE Study, HGDS, MACS, MHCS, SFCC, and O'Brien, S. J .: Genetic restriction of AIDS pathogenesis by an SDF-1 chemokine gene variant. Science 279: 389-393, 1998. [ PDF ]

Carrington, M., Nelson, G., Martin, M. P., Kissner, T., Vlahov, D., Goedert, J. J., Kaslow, R., Buchbinder, S., Hoots, K., and O'Brien, S. J .: HLA and HIV-1: Heterozygote advantage and B*35-Cw*04 disadvantage. Science 283: 1748-1752, 1999.

Gao X, Nelson GW, Karacki P, Martin MP, Phair J, Kaslow R, Goedert JJ, Buchbinder S, Hoots K, Vlahov D, O'Brien SJ, Carrington M. Effect of a single amino acid change in MHC class I molecules on the rate of progression to AIDS. N Engl J Med , 2001;344:1668-75. [ PDF ]

O'Brien SJ and Nelson, GW . Human Genes That Limit AIDS. Nature Genetics , 2004; 36: 565-574. [ PDF ]

Nelson, GW, Martin MP, Gladman D, Wade J, Trowsdale J, Carrington M. Cutting edge: heterozygote advantage in autoimmune disease: hierarchy of protection/susceptibility conferred by HLA and killer Ig-like receptor combinations in psoriatic arthritis. J Immunol . 2004;173:4273-6. [ PDF ]

Nelson, G.W. and O'Brien, S.J . Using mutual information to measure the impact of multiple factors on disease. J. AIDS , 2006; 42: 347-354