IAS Public Lecture: Models of infectious disease transmission with complex pathogen and population characteristics

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• Dr Nic Geard (IAS Vanguard Fellow, Department of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne)
• Monday 22 October 2018, 11:00-12:00
• Computer Science, The Sloman Lounge (UG).

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Hector Basevi.

Host: Dr Shan He

Speaker website: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/ias/vanguard-fellowship-programme/2018/Geard.aspx

Abstract: Infectious diseases impose a significant health and economic burden upon individuals and societies. Mathematical and computational modelling are increasingly used to understand how pathogens spread through populations, and to inform decisions about their control. Traditional compartmental approaches to modelling infectious diseases, while powerful, often require simplifying assumptions about the characteristics of both pathogens and populations. However, reality is complex: pathogens with multiple strains present a challenge for vaccine design, and optimal use of healthcare resources requires interventions tailored to the characteristics of specific populations. Individual-based models can enable us to capture important aspects of pathogen and population complexity.

In this talk, I will describe our application of individual-based modelling to two policy-relevant challenges in infectious disease control. In the first, we developed a population model that incorporates realistic demographic structure and dynamics, and used it to evaluate the impact of maternal vaccination strategies against pertussis (whooping cough) in developed and developing country settings. In the second, we developed a novel multi-strain model of the bacterial pathogen Group A Streptococcus, which sheds new light on the relationship between within-host processes of infection and immunity and population-level epidemiology, and the necessary characteristics of an effective vaccine.

Biography: Dr Nic Geard is a Vanguard Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Birmingham, and Senior Lecturer at the School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Australia. His research is focused on the development of computational simulation models, primarily in the domain of infectious disease transmission and control. He holds an honorary appointment with the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, and is an investigator on a Centre of Research Excellence on policy-relevant infectious disease modelling, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

This talk is part of the Artificial Intelligence and Natural Computation seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Artificial Intelligence and Natural Computation seminars
• Computer Science Departmental Series
• Computer Science Distinguished Seminars
• Computer Science, The Sloman Lounge (UG)
• computer sience

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