Chris Banks

Join us for the launch event! We are excited to invite you to the official launch of the Global Society for Infectious Disease Dynamics (GSIDD) on February 26th, 2026.This launch marks an important milestone for our global communi...

Launch of the Global Society of Infectious Disease Dynamics. 🎉

2 online webinars on Thursday 26th.
Do join to see what it's all about, and get involved in the community as it kicks off!

www.gsidd.org/post/join-us...

Risk of exotic disease introduction and propagation in the Austrian swine trade network Animal health management; animal science; food animal veterinary medicine; porcine epidemiology

Check out this new paper by Gavrila Puspitarani (with small contribution from me). It’s about networks and the spread of diseases, and Austrian pigs www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Oh no! 😯

IDDconf 2026 A Conference on Infectious Disease Dynamics. IDDconf is the second instalment of a new meeting series focussing on innovative research in infectious disease dynamics.

IDDconf 2026 registration is open! See IDDconf.org for details and registration link.

As one of the "we" very pleased to be part of this initiative. Thanks to @helcecilia.bsky.social @paulineezanno.bsky.social and @gaelbn.bsky.social for taking the lead on this one.

Results so stunningly clear they inspired this classic xkcd (xkcd.com/2400/):

Jon Read kicking things off at IDDconf 2025 telling us neat things about contact patterns in England during the COVID pandemic.

Fab day at IDDconf 2025
We’ve seen a lot of great talks and just before the poster session and reception, Martin Wolfender from @unibe.ch is telling us about forecasting hospital bed use.

Estimated transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 variants from wastewater are unbiased and robust to differential shedding - Nature Communications Epidemiological estimates from wastewater are not biased by testing rates but may be subject to other biases. Here, the authors investigate the impact of variable virus shedding profiles for different...

Estimated transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 variants from wastewater are unbiased and robust to differential shedding www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New review shows the need to focus on antibiotic resistance in the environment | Edinburgh Infectious Diseases | Edinburgh Infectious Diseases August 2025: A recent review has found that research into AMR in the environment needs to extend beyond wealhty countries and freshwater settings.

New review shows the need to focus on antibiotic resistance in the environment 🌏🔬

Antibiotic resistance in the environment is not well studied, which may have consequences for human health, according to research.

edinburgh-infectious-diseases.ed.ac.uk/news/latest-...

9% believe and 39% unsure that the rabies vx causes dog autism?!?!

BTW, dog autism isn't a thing.

21% don't belive humans evolved from earlier life...

Farmers and scientists join forces in Cornwall to vaccinate badgers against TB The groups have long been at odds over culling of badgers in England as a way to control TB in cattle

Really welcome news as a farmer led program working with scientists to vaccinate badgers for TB rather than cull is to start. There is little evidence that culling reduces TB in cows but vaccine trials reduce TB in badgers from 16 down to 0% in prior trial

If you want a weird but true fact to talk about:

Dexter Holland, lead singer of The Offspring, was instrumental in this. His doctorial thesis in molecular biology was sequencing mRNA in HIV. The paper was also heavily cited in creating the COVID-19 vaccine.

Inferring contact network characteristics from epidemic data via compact mean-field models Modelling epidemics using contact networks provides a significant improvement over classical compartmental models by explicitly incorporating the network of contacts. However, while network-based mode...

Inferring contact network characteristics from epidemic data via compact mean-field models arxiv.org/abs/2502.12040

Optimal control prevents itself from eradicating stochastic disease epidemics Author summary Improving epidemic outcomes in situations with limited resources for control is important across human, animal and plant health. An example of this type of optimisation is deciding whic...

Optimal control prevents itself from eradicating stochastic disease epidemics journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

Artificial intelligence for modelling infectious disease epidemics - Nature This Perspective considers the application to infectious disease modelling of AI systems that combine machine learning, computational statistics, information retrieval and data science.

Artificial intelligence for modelling infectious disease epidemics www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Quantifying infectious disease epidemic risks: A practical approach for seasonal pathogens Author summary Invasive pathogens pose a substantial challenge to human health, particularly as outbreak risks for some infectious diseases are being exacerbated by climate change. For example, the oc...

Quantifying infectious disease epidemic risks: A practical approach for seasonal pathogens journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

map of proposed roundabout

spokes objection

cyclists will now be considered - no details yet

#A702 #EasterBush

Oct 2024: we objected to zero 🚲 consideration in new planned 3-arm roundabout near @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social campus

👍They are listening! (so far)

@edi.bike @chdot.bsky.social @uoe-eid.bsky.social @alow.bsky.social @debbimccall.bsky.social @banks.ac @kirstymcneill.bsky.social

Estimates of the reproduction ratio from epidemic surveillance may be biased in spatially structured populations Accurate estimates of the reproduction ratio are crucial to project infectious disease epidemic evolution and guide public health response. Here, we prove that estimates of the reproduction ratio base...

Estimates of the reproduction ratio from epidemic surveillance may be biased in spatially structured populations arxiv.org/abs/2307.13798

DeepTrace: Learning to Optimize Contact Tracing in Epidemic Networks with Graph Neural Networks Digital contact tracing aims to curb epidemics by identifying and mitigating public health emergencies through technology. Backward contact tracing, which tracks the sources of infection, proved cruci...

DeepTrace: Learning to Optimize Contact Tracing in Epidemic Networks with Graph Neural Networks arxiv.org/abs/2211.00880

Grandma drill

Red panda

Cotton-top tamarin

Haggis the baby pygmy hippo

Merry Christmas! The tradition of spending Christmas Eve at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo continues. Enjoy a few pics...

Academic institutions: “We’ve got to maintain a presence on X because that’s where the journ…. oh.”

Novel travel time aware metapopulation models and multi-layer waning immunity for late-phase epidemic and endemic scenarios Author summary As human contacts and contact networks are key to the development and prediction of infectious disease spread, travel and commuting activities are important components to be considered ...

Novel travel time aware metapopulation models and multi-layer waning immunity for late-phase epidemic and endemic scenarios journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

"The model leads to insights that may be relevant to other, less fictitious, emergency situations." 🧟‍♀️

📣 #fundedPhD in "Modelling salivo-surveillance for detecting population immunity, transmission dynamics & changes in vaccine effectiveness" #IDsky #EpiSky #PhDSky 🧪

👥 Supervised by @3113n.bsky.social + colleagues at Uni. of Bristol & UKHSA

🗓️ Closes 27 Jan 2025. Interviews Mar 2025. Start Sep 2025.

Congratulations Prof. Eggo! 🥂

Picture of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine with Logo on top.

Finishing 2024 on a high note: delighted to be appointed Professor at LSHTM.

Thanks to many many people for support & advice along the way. 🙏

Looking forward to more exciting research, collaborations with amazing scientists, work with my fantastic team & PPIE colleagues.

Exciting times ahead! 🎉

Latest out: Real-time estimates of the emergence and dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: A modeling approach. Great collaboration with Nicolo Gozzi @mattk7.bsky.social @jessica-davis.bsky.social Kunpeng Mu Ana Pastore Marco Ajelli @alexvespi.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Good news everyone! A new version of graph-tool is just out! @graph-tool.skewed.de

graph-tool.skewed.de

Graph-tool is a comprehensive and efficient Python library to work with networks, including structural, dynamical, and statistical algorithms, as well as visualization. 1/N

#networkscience