PhD Infectious Disease

We take a highly interdisciplinary approach to the study of infectious disease that combines mathematical and statistical modelling with ecology, evolutionary biology, parasitology, immunology and bioinformatics and the social sciences.OVERVIEWThe Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health & Comparative Medicine has considerable strengths in epidemiology, particularly in the areas of quantitative modelling, genetic analysis, surveillance, immunology and vaccinology, antimicrobial resistance, vector ecology and one-health approaches to disease management. Much of our focus is on endemic and ‘neglected’ diseases, pathogens of veterinary importance, zoonoses, and studying the biology of these pathogens in their natural context, particularly in developing countries.We take a highly interdisciplinary approach to the study of infectious diseases, recognising that epidemiology is very much the ecology of infectious diseases, and thereby benefiting greatly from overlap with strengths in spatial and quantitative ecology. Our modelling is developed in close proximity to data, and focused on estimation of parameters relevant to dynamics and control using innovative statistical methodologies. The advent of new sequencing technologies will revolutionise the way we study epidemiology, particularly regarding processes that influence disease transmission, which is usually a very ‘hidden’ process.Individual research projects are tailored around the expertise of principal investigators within the Institutes. A variety of approaches are used, including ecology, epidemiology, mathematical, computational and statistical modelling, bioinformatics, parasitology, immunology and polyomics (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics). Basic and applied science projects are available for study, as are field-based projects with research programs underway in both the UK and overseas. Specific areas of interest include:infectious disease dynamics in wild and domestic animal populationswildlife diseases and conservationnetwork analysis of disease spreadphylodynamicsmodel-based statistical inference using Bayesian approachesvector biology, ecology and controllife-history trade-offs and the sustainable control of malariavaccine developmentquantitative approaches to vaccine selectionhost-parasite interactions and immunogeneticswild immunologymolecular ecology and evolutionzoonoses and neglected tropical diseases and the science of interventionecosystem and One Healthsocial and ecological impacts of diseasegame theory and the design of disease control programsantibiotic and anthelminthic resistancedesign of vaccination programswithin-host pathogen dynamicsevolutionary game theorytheory of diversity measurement and its applicationecology and evolution of emerging infectious diseasesecology of multi-host pathogensecology and evolution of vector-borne pathogensenvironmental drivers of pathogen spreadmicro and macro-parasitic infections.