This proposal details a 5-year training program for the development of Theodore H. Cohen's academic career in infectious disease epidemiology. He has completed a MD at Duke University and a MPH at the UNC School of Public Health and will now enhance his research skills through didactic and research training in the Epidemiology Department at the Harvard School of Public Health. The proposed program will focus on the development of new analytic tools to evaluate molecular data from tuberculosis patients. Dr. Barry Bloom, a leader in tuberculosis and public health research, will mentor the principal investigator's scientific development. He is the Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and has trained numerous graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. For advanced training in relevant epidemiological methods, the program includes co-mentors, Asst. Prof. Megan Murray and Professor James Robins. Dr. Murray has developed stochastic models of tuberculosis transmission and worked extensively with molecular epidemiological data. Professor James Robins is a leading expert in causal inference and epidemiological methods and has trained many students and post-doctoral fellows in these techniques. As a center of TB research and epidemiological methods, the Harvard School of Public Health offers a unique setting for this training. Since the development of methods for DNA fingerprinting of M. tuberculosis, molecular techniques have been used to estimate the fraction of cases attributable to recent transmission, to document exogenous reinfection, to identify host and strain specific risk factors for disease spread. Methodological problems in these studies may impair their interpretability, especially in high incidence areas. While there is increasing recognition of these problems, little work has been done to discover methods for improving the analysis of molecular studies.
The specific aims of this research are: 1) To describe the transmission dynamics of tuberculosis in high incidence areas of South Africa and the Russian Federation and 2) To describe the transmission dynamics of drug-resistant strains in high-incidence areas with a high prevalence of drug-resistance and to identify drug-resistant epidemic strains. It is our hope that better analytic techniques will allow for more accurate assessments of treatment and prevention. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Type
Clinical Investigator Award (CIA) (K08)
Project #
1K08AI055985-01A1
Application #
6781932
Study Section
Microbiology and Infectious Diseases B Subcommittee (MID)
Program Officer
Jacobs, Gail G
Project Start
2004-06-01
Project End
2004-08-31
Budget Start
2004-06-01
Budget End
2004-08-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2004
Total Cost
$31,050
Indirect Cost
Name
Harvard University
Department
Public Health & Prev Medicine
Type
Schools of Public Health
DUNS #
149617367
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02115
Colijn, Caroline; Cohen, Ted; Murray, Megan (2009) Latent coinfection and the maintenance of strain diversity. Bull Math Biol 71:247-63
Blaya, Joaquín A; Cohen, Ted; Rodríguez, Pablo et al. (2009) Personal digital assistants to collect tuberculosis bacteriology data in Peru reduce delays, errors, and workload, and are acceptable to users: cluster randomized controlled trial. Int J Infect Dis 13:410-8
Cohen, Ted; Colijn, Caroline; Murray, Megan (2008) Modeling the effects of strain diversity and mechanisms of strain competition on the potential performance of new tuberculosis vaccines. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 105:16302-7
Cohen, Ted; Colijn, Caroline; Wright, Abigail et al. (2008) Challenges in estimating the total burden of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 177:1302-6
Cohen, Ted; Colijn, Caroline; Finklea, Bryson et al. (2008) Are survey-based estimates of the burden of drug resistant TB too low? Insight from a simulation study. PLoS One 3:e2363
Dagan, Ron; Barkai, Galia; Givon-Lavi, Noga et al. (2008) Seasonality of antibiotic-resistant streptococcus pneumoniae that causes acute otitis media: a clue for an antibiotic-restriction policy? J Infect Dis 197:1094-102
Lin, Hsien-Ho; Murray, Megan; Cohen, Ted et al. (2008) Effects of smoking and solid-fuel use on COPD, lung cancer, and tuberculosis in China: a time-based, multiple risk factor, modelling study. Lancet 372:1473-83
Cohen, Ted; Lipsitch, Marc (2008) Too little of a good thing: a paradox of moderate infection control. Epidemiology 19:588-9
Lipsitch, Marc; Cohen, Ted; Murray, Megan et al. (2007) Antiviral resistance and the control of pandemic influenza. PLoS Med 4:e15
Colijn, Caroline; Cohen, Ted; Murray, Megan (2007) Emergent heterogeneity in declining tuberculosis epidemics. J Theor Biol 247:765-74

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