Evolutionary Epidemiology of Infectious Disease

EPI 519 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Like all living things, pathogens have evolved by natural selection. The application of evolutionary principles to infectious disease epidemiology is crucial to such diverse subjects as outbreak analysis, the understanding of how different genomic combinations of virulence and drug resistance determinants emerge, and how selection acts to produce successful pathogens that balance the costs and benefits of virulence and transmission. The goal of this course is to introduce basic evolutionary concepts, highlighting the importance of transmission to the fitness as illustrated by comparisons of the adaptive process among different sorts of pathogenic microorganisms. Students will also learn the basics of phylogenetic sequence analysis for the study of outbreaks and transmission, and the construction of simple mathematical models that probe the adaptive process.

Students outside of HSPH must request instructor permission to enroll in this course