Multiscale Modeling

Bridging within-host infection to between hosts transmission

Overview: A central paradigm in  public health is to predict to what extent does the within-host infection dynamics influence the transmission process between individuals  and to what is the effect of population dynamics of disease transmission at the individual level.

State  of the art: While single models between the infection dynamics within a host and the population-level transmission dynamics  are well-known, a comprehensive framework that would allow full integration of the two scales is still lacking. Although multiscale models can often be obtained by coupling different model classes (Hybrid models), “scale bridging” is a very delicate process where theoretical and computational tools are radically limited for this task.

Our research in Multiscale Modelling aims to:

• maturate a within-host and between-host modelling framework as a virtual disease tool for the better prediction of epidemics and outbreaks

• discover underlying shapes of immune cells at within-host level and social contact patterns between age groups  that could  influence the spread of infectious diseases

• evaluate therapies, vaccines and public health policies in multiscale models

Relevant Publications in this Field:

• E.A. Hernandez-Vargas, A.Y. Alanis, J. Tetteh. A new view of multiscale stochastic impulsive systems for modeling and control of epidemics. Annual Reviews in Control. 2019 [Link] 

• A.E.S. Almocera, E.A. Hernandez-Vargas. Coupling multiscale within-host dynamics and between-host transmission with recovery (SIR) dynamics. Mathematical Bioscience. 309:34-41, 2019 [Link]

• V.K. Nguyen, Rafael Mikolajczyk, E.A. Hernandez-Vargas. High-Resolution epidemic simulation using within-host infection and contact data.  BMC Public Health. 2018 [Preprint]  [PDF]

• A.E.S. Almocera, V.K. Nguyen, E.A. Hernandez-Vargas.  Multiscale model within-host and between-host for viral infectious diseases. Journal of Mathematical Biology. 76 (404), 1-23,  2018 [Link]  [Preprint]

• V.K. Nguyen, C. Parra-Rojas, E.A. Hernandez-Vargas. The 2017 plague outbreak in Madagascar: data descriptions and epidemic modelling.  Epidemics. 2018  [Link]