Postgraduate research students

I'm researching the 'wicked' public health problem of Schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease prevalent across Africa, Southeast, and South America. Focusing on the species Schistosoma mansoni, I'm interested in understanding infection dynamics on a population and individual level and how interventions, such as mass drug administration, affect these. 

First, I aim to provide more robust elements of 'true' population infection prevalence and the proportion of individuals contributing to parasite transmission by using latent class analysis models. I will also undertake sibship analyses on parasite larvae (miracidia) to estimate the number of adult worms in an individual. This enables longitudinal measures of infection intensity on an individual basis and will allow me to explore how mass drug administration affects adult worm burden dynamics (as opposed to worm antigen levels and egg shedding, measured by traditional field diagnostics). Further, I will determine the proportions of worms surviving drug treatment versus new infections. 

My research will inform epidemiological models and improve understanding of transmission dynamics and the effects of mass drug administration. Additionally, I aim to lay the groundwork for future investigations into the causes of treatment failure (i.e. resistant worms versus new infections). Finally, as individual worm burden affects Schistosomiasis morbidity, developing a model that can predict infection intensity may facilitate targeted treatments to heavily infected individuals.

• Professor Poppy Lamberton