Our team in Antwerp (Evolutionary Ecology Group + Centre for Health
Economics Research & Modeling Infectious Diseases) is starting a project
entitled “Infectious disease models: wildlife ecology, ecological disturbance
and transmission to humans.” For this project, two post-doc positions (4
years) and one PhD-fellowship (4 years) are currently available. Could you
please forward this information to potential candidates? A project summary
and links to the position announcements are given below.
Project summary
Since almost two decades, there is a strong interest in the ecology and
epidemiology of infectious diseases, especially the so-called re-emerging or
new diseases. Many of those infections are caused by pathogens that have
a natural wildlife reservoir (sometimes still unknown) or where an arthropod
vector is necessary for the transmission between humans. It is often
suggested that environmental disturbances play a major role in the
spreading of these diseases. In this project we investigate mechanisms
through which this may happen.
The two major pathways that are thought to contribute to the importance of
these diseases are 1°) pathogen jumps between animal and humans
leading to the emergence of a really new infection and 2°) changing
environmental conditions that favour the expansion of populations of the
natural reservoir species or that allow faster, more frequent and/or more
efficient transmission between hosts. Changes in the environment, however,
could also have more complex effects if they for example cause more
abundant populations of hosts but at the same time reduce transmission
(e.g. warmer winters lead to higher rodent numbers, but some viruses
remain infectious for a longer time under cold conditions).
For this project, we selected five different model systems where we
anticipate likely environmental disturbances (e.g. plausible climate change
scenarios, or vaccinations that create opportunities for new pathogens) that
would lead to combinations of positive or negative effects on transmission
and positive or neutral effects on host populations (the effects of reductions
of host populations are already well studied). Those systems are Puumala
hantavirus in bank voles in Belgium, plague in gerbils in Kazakhstan, Mopeia
arenaviruses in multimammate mice in Tanzania, the mosquito-transmitted
dengue fever in humans (mainly in Asia), and rotaviruses that cause gastro-
enteritis in humans (mainly in children) in Belgium. The participating groups
have considerable and internationally well- reputed experience with these
model systems, but the main reasons for selecting them are that there are
sizeable pre-existing long-term data and that clear hypotheses can be
formulated about what could happen under very specific ecological
conditions.
The systems will be studied using a combination of existing observational
data, new prospective field data, field and laboratory experiments and
mathematical modelling. Mathematical models are a very powerful tool in
understanding the ecology of infection and for the development of optimal
disease control strategies. At the same time, however, they often remain
very theoretical because of lack of field data to parameterise and validate
them. The present proposal will provide data to do exactly this and will thus
allow to test different basic epidemiological assumptions. This will provide
new insights in transmission dynamics that were hitherto impossible to
verify, it will allow predictions about what can be expected under different
environmental conditions and it will also contribute directly to new
approaches in disease management.
More information can be obtained through the following links:Evolutionary Ecology Group:
Ph.D.-student in the field of Ecology of Infections
(http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=*VACATURES&n=26394&ct=c025734&e
7771)
Postdoctoral position for Theoretical Biologist/Mathematical modeler
(http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=*VACATURES&n=26394&ct=c025734&e
7769)
Centre for Health Economics Research & Modeling Infectious Diseases:
Postdoctoral position for infectious disease modeler
(http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=*VACATURES&n=42572&ct=43038&e=2
07766)
Many thanks and best wishes
Herwig
–
Prof. dr. Herwig LEIRS
Evolutionary Ecology Group, Universiteit Antwerpen
Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020 Antwerpen, Belgium
phone: +32 (0)3 2653469 fax: +32 (0)3 2653474
http://www.ua.ac.be/herwig.leirs
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