Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Mar:10:40-4.
doi: 10.1016/j.epidem.2014.12.003. Epub 2014 Dec 18.

Five challenges in evolution and infectious diseases

C J E Metcalf  1 , R B Birger  2 , S Funk  3 , R D Kouyos  4 , J O Lloyd-Smith  5 , V A A Jansen  6
Affiliations
Free article

Five challenges in evolution and infectious diseases

C J E Metcalf et al. Epidemics. 2015 Mar.
Free article

Abstract

Evolution is a key aspect of the biology of many pathogens, driving processes ranging from immune escape to changes in virulence. Because evolution is inherently subject to feedbacks, and because pathogen evolution plays out at scales ranging from within-host to between-host and beyond, evolutionary questions provide special challenges to the modelling community. In this article, we provide an overview of five challenges in modelling the evolution of pathogens and their hosts, and point to areas for development, focussing in particular on the issue of linking theory and data.

Keywords: Coinfection; Diversity; Fitness; Genetic systems; R0.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types