"MIDAS is designed not only to help prepare us for infectious disease crises, but also to be an active part of the response," said Jeremy M. Berg, PhD, NIGMS director. "In the case of a national medical emergency, MIDAS scientists can redirect their work to help government officials quickly determine the best way to deal with the epidemic. The modeling tools will also advance our ability to study complex systems with many interacting parts, which is essential to truly understand biological processes," he added.
The research team in the Department of Biostatistics at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health and the Biology Department of Emory College will model a disease outbreak in hypothetical American communities (population sizes 2,000 to 48,000) to find the best method(s) of controlling the epidemic. The researchers will examine the effectiveness of policies including surveillance and containment, vaccination, medical treatment and the closing of key institutions. They will adapt their model for smallpox, SARS, pandemic influenza and other possible bioterrorism agents or naturally occurring diseases. They also will investigate the interaction of microorganisms with the immune system and how it relates to disease spread through the population.
Other grants were awarded to a research group that includes the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Brookings Institution, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the University of Maryland and Imperial College (London); a group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory; and an informatics group spearheaded by Research Triangle Institute International, including research
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Contact: Holly Korschun
hkorsch@emory.edu
404-727-3990
Emory University Health Sciences Center
7-May-2004