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. 2015 Aug 6;11(8):e1004992.
doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1004992. eCollection 2015 Aug.

Interdisciplinarity and Infectious Diseases: An Ebola Case Study

Vanessa O Ezenwa  1 , Anne-Helene Prieur-Richard  2 , Benjamin Roche  3 , Xavier Bailly  4 , Pierre Becquart  5 , Gabriel E García-Peña  6 , Parviez R Hosseini  7 , Felicia Keesing  8 , Annapaola Rizzoli  9 , Gerardo Suzán  10 , Marco Vignuzzi  11 , Marion Vittecoq  12 , James N Mills  13 , Jean-François Guégan  5
Affiliations

Interdisciplinarity and Infectious Diseases: An Ebola Case Study

Vanessa O Ezenwa et al. PLoS Pathog. .
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. In the two leftmost panels, we depict the hierarchy of biological organization, from molecules and genes to ecosystems.
Each level of the hierarchy reflects an increase in organizational complexity, with each level being primarily composed of the previous level’s basic units. Middle panels illustrate how the study of interactions between infectious disease agents and their hosts differs across the biomedical, public health, and ecological sciences. Specifically, biomedical sciences typically focus on lower- and medium-scale levels of biological organization (e.g., molecules, genes, and organs). In contrast, public health and ecological sciences typically focus on medium- and higher-scale levels of organization (individual, population, community, ecosystem, and environment). The filled circles and solid lines connecting the circles illustrate key cross scale biological interactions studied within each field. The right panel shows example knowledge gaps that can emerge from the “typical” segregation of research activities across the three fields. To better integrate our understanding of the causes and consequences of zoonotic infectious diseases, researchers must begin focusing on these types of missing links.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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