What Cross-Scale Research Can Tell Us About Predicting, Understanding And Mitigating Future Pandemics?
Abstract:
We briefly review the epidemic and evolutionary dynamics of directly-transmitted infections and their transition from pandemics to endemicity. We discuss how cross-scale dynamics, from protein to pandemic, determine key issues in understanding, predicting, and mitigating outbreaks, then build on this to discuss future cross-scale research and public health priorities.
Bio:
Bryan Grenfell is a population biologist, distinguished for his investigation into the spatiotemporal dynamics of pathogens and other populations. Bryan studies processes that occur in populations at different scales and how infections move through such groups of organisms. His work is crucial in helping to control disease in humans and animals.
His research is theoretical as well as based on large datasets, demonstrating how the density of a population and randomness interact to change the size and composition of populations. Alongside colleagues from the National University of Singapore, he studied measles in developed countries and is now extending his investigations to whooping cough and other infectious diseases.
Bryan is currently a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs at Princeton UniversityOpens in a new window in New Jersey. He was awarded the T. H. Huxley Medal from Imperial College London in 1991, and the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of LondonOpens in a new window in 1995.
