Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases (EEID) at ICMS, Edinburgh June 17-19 2019

Aim: National Sciences Foundation will be announcing Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases 2019 solicitation later this year. UKRI funders (BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, NERC and MRC) are keen that mathematical and social sciences (broadly interpreted) should be fully involved in UK proposals seeking to better understand the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases and have asked ICMS and the Newton Institute to coordinate a meeting with practitioners and theorists (including biologists, social scientists, ecologists, mathematicians, infectious disease scientists [plants, animals, humans and the environment], clinicians and veterinarians from the UK, China, Israel and the US) to develop partnerships that would work together to develop transdisciplinary proposals for the next EEID solicitation. The call is expected to close in November, hence the short notice.

Participants: The meeting will involve up to 80 participants. There will be a call for participants from all the relevant communities in early May and the selected UK participants will receive funding to attend.

More details will be available after Easter.

It is great to annouce that Mike Tildesley has been awarded two major grants through BBSRC in the passed two week:

• Tildesley and Keeling have been awarded a BBSRC grant (in collaboration with Nottingham University) for "Investigating the impact of farmer behaviour and farmer-led control of infectious disease outbreaks in livestock".
• Tildesley has won a EEID NSF-BBSRC US UK collaborative grant (in collaboration with collegues at Penn State) for "Adaptive surveillance and control for endemic disease elimination".

Last week Kat Rock, from SBIDER and WMI, presented modelling work on African sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis, HAT) to Bill Gates. Kat runs the HAT Modelling and Economic Predictions for Policy (HAT MEPP) project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project involves modellers and health economists from Warwick, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Institute of Disease Modeling and Oxford. The research is designed to provide data-driven insights to help local decision making and planning as sleeping sickness programmes strive towards elimination of the disease.