Infectious Diseases: a One Health Approach
How do zoonotic diseases emerge? Should badgers be culled to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis? What is the influence of conservation and agriculture practices on public health? How does climate change affect the spread of vector-borne diseases?
The majority of infectious diseases in humans originate from animal populations. The One Health concept, which recognises that the health of humans is intrinsically connected to the health of animals and the environment, underpins the module. This module caters for all NST, MedSt and VetST students who want to understand the wider context of disease biology and epidemiology beyond core biomedical disciplines.
While this module is designed to complement the Epidemiology module in Michaelmas term, with a shared list of projects, the two modules can be studied independently.
The program is organised and delivered by experts in infectious disease epidemiology from the Department of Veterinary Medicine, complemented by guest lectures on specific infections by external experts.
Research Projects
Students will be offered research projects at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, which may be either laboratory or computer-based.
Examples of Recent Projects
- Antibodies against multiple filoviruses in African bat populations.
- Using mutational spectra to understand pathogen niche and biology.
- Simulating dog rabies outbreaks in Tanzania.
- Phylodynamic models for the intra-species transmission of Mycobacteria.
- Antimicrobial resistance in wild penguin microbiota.
- Virulence evolution in the zoonotic pathogen Streptococcus suis.