Active Infection & Immunity Genetics & Molecular Biology

Hosts, Pathogens and Global Health

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation University of Edinburgh
Funding £5.5M
Period Oct 2020 — Sept 2028

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A PhD programme is training a new generation of infection biologists to work across molecular biology, ecology, and epidemiology—disciplines that rarely talk to one another. Neglected and emerging diseases are complex problems that cannot be solved by specialists working in isolation. A molecular biologist who understands how a pathogen invades cells may know nothing about the ecological conditions that drive its spread through a community. An epidemiologist tracking disease outbreaks may have no grasp of the host immune response that determines who gets sick. This programme forces those conversations to happen from the start of a researcher’s career, building a cohort that can connect lab findings to field realities. If it succeeds, the programme will produce scientists who can design interventions that work in the real world—vaccines that account for co-infections, control strategies that anticipate evolutionary dynamics, and outbreak responses informed by both immunology and social context. The work is fundamentally about training people, not producing a single breakthrough. But the payoff is a workforce equipped to tackle diseases that currently kill millions, from tuberculosis to emerging zoonotic threats, by bridging the gaps between disciplines that usually stay separate.

View original technical description
To solve the problems of neglected and emerging diseases an integrated approach to infectious disease biology is needed. We must understand the biology of the pathogen and its interaction with the host, immune mechanisms that contribute to disease outcome, and the ecological and epidemiological factors that determine disease spread. If the future leaders in global health are to exploit knowledge of the full range of pathogen and host interactions, from core molecular processes to understanding host-pathogen interactions in the field, including co-infections, zoonoses and evolutionary dynamics, coupled with an appreciation of the wider societal context, we must prepare them from the outset of their PhD. Since establishment in 2016 the Wellcome Trust “Hosts, Pathogens and Global Health” programme has developed a unique interdisciplinary and international research training structure providing expertise spanning infectious disease biology from molecular to evolutionary and epidemiological scales. Our key goals are: - To train a cadre of infection biologists skilled in interdisciplinary approaches to disease control and well versed in the opportunities of quantitative, theoretical and experimental approaches. - Use the community and mentorship ethos within Edinburgh and between our international partners to build a life-long supportive network of next-generation researchers working across disciplines to combat infectious disease.

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Researchers

Keith Matthews (EPMC Awardee)Mark Woolhouse (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

University of Edinburgh - Hosts, Pathogens & Global Health
What makes a super-spreader? Genetic control, evolutionary constraints and epidemiological implications of heterogeneity in host infectiousness
Neuro-Immune Interactions in Health and Disease
MRC Centre for Genomics and Global Health
Immunology, infection and translational medicine.

Original classification

PhD Programme in Science (Basic)

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.