UPGG Seminar Series: "Examining the interplay bewteen viral evolution and disease spread"

Over the last decade, disease ecologists and epidemiologists have increasingly relied on viral sequence data and phylogenies to gain insight into the population dynamics of infectious diseases and the factors that govern their spread. Dr. Koelle will detail two aspects of this research program that her group has been actively involved in over the last several years. The first is the use of viral sequence data to statistically inform nonlinear epidemiological models and to estimate their parameters. The second is the use of viral sequences to gain a better understanding of the role that genetic background and circulating sublethal deleterious mutations play in shaping patterns of adaptive antigenic evolution in influenza A subtype H3N2 present in humans.