Pedro Vale, University of Edinburgh
What makes a super-spreader? Genetic, physiological, and evolutionary drivers of individual host heterogeneity in pathogen transmission
Host heterogeneity in infectiousness - the ability to transmit pathogens - is a common phenomenon in most epidemics. Heterogeneity is particularly striking in individuals with extreme pathogen transmission phenotypes (super-spreaders) who greatly accelerate the spread of infections. Investigating the drivers of heterogeneity in host infectiousness therefore presents a major opportunity for curtailing pathogen transmission. Part of the difficulty in linking individual heterogeneity to population-scale outcomes is that individuals can vary in multiple behavioural, physiological, and immunological traits that each contribute to heterogeneity in pathogen transmission. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is an established model system of infection, immunity, and behaviour so is an ideal system to investigate the genetic and immune determinants, and evolutionary constraints underlying extreme host heterogeneity in pathogen transmission. I will discuss recent and ongoing work using the fly as a model system for experimental evolutionary epidemiology.
To location map
contact