Research Description
Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases continue to threaten the gains made in public health and medical care over the past decades. In addition to HIV and MDR-TB, our teams have worked in countries affected by Ebola, chikungunya, SARS-CoV2 and, most recently, monkeypox. The emergence of many of these new and re-emerging pathogens is linked to climate change and social and economic crises that increase both the risk of spillover of infections from wildlife to human populations and the unchecked spread of pathogens that have emerged. In addition to surveillance and a study of the epidemiology of these infections, there is an urgent need for the development of tools such as diagnostics, vaccines and treatment.
Research Projects
Field evaluations of Ebola diagnostic tests
Description: We assessed the performance of new Ebola diagnostic tests in the context of Ebola treatment units in Sierra Leone. Our studies were published in the Lancet and PLoS Medicine.
Core Member(s): Megan Murray
Funder: N/A
Funding Number: N/A
Mathematical modeling to inform Ebola vaccine study design
Description: We developed models to simulate different real time vaccine roll-outs in Sierra Leone and assessed the ability of different study designs to determine vaccine efficacy in the setting of an epidemic.
Core Member(s): Megan Murray (PI)
Funder: N/A
Funding Number: N/A
Ebola serosurveillance
Description: We conducted a seroprevalence survey of Ebola in Sierra Leone.
Core Member(s): Megan Murray (PI: Richardson, E.)
Funder: N/A
Funding Number: N/A
Infectious disease transmission at the human-non-human primate interface in Peru
Description: Having documented transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from humans to primates, this team is now proposing to expand this work to assess the bi-directional transmission of viral and bacterial pathogens at an eco-reserve in Amazonian Peru.
Core Member(s): Megan Murray (PI: Rosenbaum, M.)
Funder: N/A
Funding Number: N/A
Hepatitis B and C in Rwanda
Description: Core post-doctoral fellow Dale Barnhardt supported a team of Rwandan investigators studying the burden, consequence and treatment outcomes for hepatitis.
Core Member(s): Dale Barnhardt (former), Bethany Hedt-Gauthier
Funder: N/A
Funding Number: N/A