Evolutionary Epidemiology of Infectious Disease

Harvard HSPH

Like all living things, pathogens have evolved by natural selection. The application of evolutionary principles to infectious disease epidemiology is crucial to such diverse subjects as outbreak analysis, the understanding of how different genomic combinations of virulence and drug resistance determinants emerge, and how selection acts to produce successful pathogens that balance the costs and benefits of virulence and transmission. The goal of this course is to introduce basic evolutionary…