Playing practical games with bacteria and viruses: exploring the molecular mechanisms behind clever cellular stratagems

How do pathogenic bacteria sense their environment to deploy different survival strategies? Why do some viruses, like HIV, allow their host to live for long periods whereas others like Ebola do not? How precisely are these strategies encoded in the organism's biochemistry and genetics and how closely do they need to be followed to guarantee its survival? What are the optimal strategies for defeating these organisms or forcing them to do our bidding for industrial or medical benefit? Here I will demonstrate, using examples from our research on Bacillus subtilis stress response and the design of HIV gene therapeutic strategies, how molecular biology combined with methods from statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, and game theory can be used to pose and partially answer these questions as well as illustrate some of the profound challenges in doing so.