The role of genetic perturbations in Bunyavirus transmission dynamics: a combined phylogenetic and mathematical study
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: Applied Mathematics
Abstract
USA
| Description | This award allowed for a collaboration to start between the University of Leeds and Los Alamos National Laboratory. As a result, a bigger project has been funded to study the evolution and transmission of Bunyaviruses. |
| Exploitation Route | The recently EEID funded project on Bunyaviruses will produce outcomes which can hopefully be taken forward. |
| Sectors | Environment Healthcare |
| Description | 20-EEID US-UK Modelling reassortment at the cellular, clinical, and phylogenetic level in emerging Bunyaviruses |
| Amount | £1,971,758 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/W010755/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2022 |
| End | 07/2025 |
| Description | Mathematical modelling of viral transmission and evolution |
| Organisation | Los Alamos National Laboratory |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | The focus of this collaboration is on i) viral transmission and evolution and ii) intra-cellular pathogens and within-host infection. The collaboration involves the following scientists: at LANL, Dr. Thomas Leitner (TL), Dr. Ethan Romero-Severson (ERS), Dr. Alan Perelson (AP) and Dr. Ruian Ke (RK), and at Leeds, Dr. Myles Gould (MG, Geography), Dr. John Barr (JB, Faculty of Biological Sciences), and Dr. López-García (MLG), Professor Grant Lythe (GL) and Professor Molina-París (CMP) in the School of Mathematics. Specific objectives of the award were A1) to prepare and submit a proposal to the EEID 2019 call, A2) to identify research opportunities to engage with social scientists to understand the role of social practices to reduce Bunyavirus transmission, A3) to carry out a preliminary analysis of the data provided by PHE making use of the phylogenetic methods developed by TL and ER, and A4) get trained in the methods and models developed by RK to understand the within-host dynamics of intra-cellular pathogens. These objectives were fulfilled within the course of the award. To fulfill these objectives, the Leeds team provides expertise in mathematical modelling of within-host and intra-cellular infection dynamics, with particular focus on the application of stochastic modelling approaches. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Expertise of our partners at LANL, which was crucial for fulfilling objectives A1-A4, is on mathematical modelling of viral dynamics, multi-scale statistical methods, single-cell level modelling of infection, as well as phylogenetic methods to understand viral evolution. These techniques allowed both to do some preliminary analysis on existing data for CCHFV, and to submit a proposal to the EEID 2019 call. |
| Impact | This collaboration is multi-disciplinary, involving scientists with very different expertises across disciplines such as Mathematics, Biology and Geography. This award led to the submission of a proposal to the EEID 2019 call. This was not successful, but a revised version has been submitted to a similar call recently. |
| Start Year | 2019 |