Mathematical modeling of malaria transmission by mosquitoes

Abstract: Malaria is a disease caused by parasites from the genus Plasmodium. Every year, 200 million individuals experience malaria, and approximately 500,000 of these individuals die. It is well established that malaria is transmitted from person to person by mosquitoes. Yet, quantitative details of how likely a bite by an infected mosquito results in infection remains poorly understood. In my talk I will analyze experimental data in which mosquitoes, carrying Plasmodium yoelii sporozoites, bite individual mice, and mathematically model the likelihood of infection as a function of several parameters (number of sporozoites per mosquito, feeding time, blood take probability) that were recorded in the data. Our results suggest that infection probability depends strongly on the number of sporozoites mosquitoes carry, and less on the probing time, and is independent of whether a mosquito takes the blood meal or not. I will also discuss implications of these results for modeling epidemiological dynamics of malaria and for clinical trials of malaria vaccines.

Dr. Vitaly Ganusov. The core of Dr. Ganusov's research is to gain deeper understanding of biological processes by using mathematical modeling. His lab combines the use of quantitative data (coming from different types of experiments in immunology and infectious diseases) and models. The emphasis of their work is on understanding which models are and which are not able to describe the data. Currently, the focus is on understanding 1) how vaccine-induced T cells locate and eliminate malaria parasites in the liver, 2) how lymphocytes recirculate in the body, 3) basic details of tuberculosis pathogenesis, 4) early HIV dynamics in humans, and 5) how to prevent evolution of bad (high false discovery rate) science.