Disease dynamics
Issued: Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:54:00 GMT
Emerging infectious diseases are one of the major challenges facing all countries around the world today. Research at Glasgow emphasises both basic epidemiological research and the development of a fundamental understanding of the population-level factors that render poultry and livestock industries vulnerable to disease invasion.
The work of Rowland Kao, Professor of Mathematical Population Biology, helps to advise government policy on the prevention and control of infectious diseases that are of vital interest to UK farming.
‘Research in my group integrates the development of parsimonious mathematical models with large-scale datasets that include disease notification data, livestock movements, spatial/geographic data and molecular type data. Our aim is to better understand why infectious diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, bovine tuberculosis, scrapie, BSE and avian influenza in poultry spread, and how best to control them.
‘We are interested not just in using established analytical techniques, but also in developing new approaches, which is critical in these exciting times when our data on populations and pathogens are becoming increasingly complex, and the demands on quantitative epidemiology are ever-increasing.’
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