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TB Modelling Group team

TB Modelling Group

The TB Modelling Group uses mathematical models to better understand the natural history and epidemiology of tuberculosis, and to improve the contribution of modelling to policy decisions and implementation.

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About us

The TB Modelling Group at LSHTM is a multidisciplinary group of mathematical modellers and epidemiologists with varying backgrounds in physics, mathematics, biomedical sciences and biology.

Research

The focus of our research is using mathematical and statistical models to better understand the natural history and epidemiology of TB and to improve the contribution of TB modelling to policy decisions and implementation.

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Profiles List
Programme Manager
Mr Kristian Godfrey

Kristian
Godfrey

TB Modelling Group Prog. Manager

Kristian’s background is in project management and administration in international development settings, and his role within the group is the coordination and management of the group’s grants. 

Follow Kristian on Twitter at: @kg_se10.

Programme Coordinators
Christina Spencer

Christina Spencer

Programme Coordinator

In her role as Programme Coordinator, Christina provides administrative, logistical and financial management support for the group. Christina joined LSHTM in 2014 as a Programme Manager and since that time has worked on a variety of projects within the School. Her earlier roles at Imperial College London and the MRC Clinical Trials Unit were also in programme management and administration.

Ms Miyo Hanazawa

Miyo
Hanazawa

TB Modelling Group Programme Coordinator

Miyo works as a Programme Coordinator, providing administrative, logistical and financial management support for the group. Her background is in international development management and prior to joining LSHTM in 2017, she worked for various ODA projects in Latin America and Asia primarily in the field of higher education.

Professors
Prof Richard White

Richard
White

Prof of Infectious Disease Modelling

Richard's research focus is the mathematical and statistical modelling of the transmission and control of infectious diseases, particularly TB and HIV. He co-leads the TB modelling group and has a broad interest in the use of models to better understand the transmission, prevention, and care of TB. He has particular interests in the use of models to improve TB prevention and care decision making at global and country level, and to accelerate the development of new TB vaccines.

Follow Richard on Twitter at: @richardwhite321.

Dr Rein Houben

Rein
Houben

Professor of Infectious Disease Epid

Rein is a TB epidemiologist and mathematical modeller. He co-leads the TB modelling group, where his primary research focus is the natural history of TB, in particular the dynamic spectrum of infection and disease as part of an ERC Starting Grant. In addition Rein has a wide interest in informing TB policy as well as understanding the social and structural determinants of TB.  Follow Rein on Twitter at: @Rein_Houben.

Associate Professors
Dr Gwen Knight

Gwen
Knight

Associate Professor

Gwen's research focuses on the spread of antibiotic resistance: by understanding where it comes from can we design novel methods for control? She has worked on estimating the fitness costs of resistance in TB, the impact of vaccination and estimates of the latent burden of drug-resistant TB infection. 

Follow Gwen on Twitter at: @gmknght.

Emilia
Vynnycky

Associate Professor

Emilia works at Public Health England (PHE) and has an affiliation with LSHTM. She works on modelling infectious diseases with a focus on rubella and TB. Her current TB research interest includes the effect of diagnstic delays.

Dr Nicky McCreesh

Nicky
McCreesh

Associate Professor

Nicky is interested in understanding the role of heterogeneity (e.g. in contact patterns, infectiousness, natural history, and health seeking behaviour) in the transmission and control of TB. She also works on calibration methodology.

Dr Finn McQuaid

Finn
McQuaid

Associate Professor

Finn is interested in modelling drug resistant TB, the impact of COVID-19 on TB and undernutrition. He is also the secretariat epidemiologist for the TB Modelling and Analysis Consortium (TB MAC). His background is in maths. 

Follow Finn on Twitter at: @cfmcquaid.

Assistant Professors
Dr Tom Sumner

Tom
Sumner

Assistant Professor (ISSF Fellowship)

Tom is interested in using models to predict and understand the impact of interventions. His current work is focused on active case finding and the potential impact of new TB vaccines.

Dr Katherine Horton

Katherine
Horton

Assistant Professor - TB Modelling Group

Katherine is an epidemiologist and mathematical modeller interested understanding and addressing disparities that increase TB burden and limit access to diagnosis and treatment.

Follow Katharine on Twitter at: @kc_horton.

Dr Kiesha Prem

Kiesha
Prem

Assistant Professor

Kiesha is an infectious disease modeller at LSHTM and the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore. She collaborates closely with the national TB programme in Cambodia and Singapore to evaluate the health impact and cost-effectiveness of TB active case-finding strategies.  Follow Kiesha on Twitter at: @kiesha_prem.

Honorary Assistant Professors
Rebecca Harris

Rebecca Harris

Honorary Assistant Professors

Rebecca is a vaccine epidemiologist and mathematical modeller. Her research focusses on modelling to inform development and implementation of new and existing TB vaccines, with the goal of informing development of candidates with the greatest potential for future public health impact. Other areas of interest have included modelling the impact of COVID-19 on TB, and development and evaluation of an app (ePAL) for spatial mapping of patients in highly populous low-income settings without addresses.

Follow Rebecca on Twitter at: @RebeccaCHarris.

Matthew Quaife

Matthew Quaife

Honorary Assistant Professor

Matt is a health economist, interested in combining health economics and infectious disease modelling to understand and solve public health problems. He is currently working on TB modelling studies estimating the impact, cost-effectiveness, and equity impact of TB vaccines and digital adherence technologies.

Follow Matthew on Twitter at: @matthew_quaife

Research Fellows

Nicola's research is focused on the measurement and analysis of the social determinants of tuberculosis. Her background is in pharmacy, public health and health economics. 

Follow Nicola on Twitter at: @nicola_c_foster.

Dr Lara Gosce

Lara
Gosce

Assistant Professor

Lara is a mathematical modeller of infectious diseases, her main research interest is studying transmission mechanisms and population dynamics. She mostly works on TB modelling and cost-effectiveness analysis.

Dr Alexandra Richards

Alexandra
Richards

Research Fellow

Alex is a mathematical modeller of infectious diseases, with a background in maths, physics, and epidemiology. Her current research includes using modelling to understand the natural history of TB disease, the effects of different treatments and the impact of gendered differences in TB.

Dr Rebecca Clark

Rebecca
Clark

Research Fellow

Rebecca is a research fellow interested in modelling tuberculosis vaccine delivery strategies as well as other interventions to address socioeconomic factors both nationally and subnationally. Her background is in math, statistics, and epidemiology. 

Follow Rebecca on Twitter at: @ra_clark18.

Research Assistants
Miss Hira Tanvir

Hira
Tanvir

Research Assistant

Hira is a research assistant at LSHTM working on sub-clinical TB and TB vaccine impact modelling. Her background is in Computational Ecology and Evolution, Biomedical Sciences and Vaccine Impact modelling for Measles, Hib, Pneumococcal and Rota virus in low and middle-income countries.

Mr Arkaprabha Gun

Arkaprabha
Gun

Research Assistant

Arka’s academic training was completed in the discipline of Economics – where he focused on political economy and health economics. He is currently working on deepening his understanding about the natural history of TB, and the consequential impact on framing and optimizing the mix of TB interventions to meet the EndTB targets, especially in low-resource settings like ones in countries of the Global South.

Miss Lily O'Brien

Lily
O'Brien

Research Assistant

Lily is a Research Assistant working on the mathematical modelling of COVID-19 transmission. Her background is in Biomedical Sciences and Public Health (Pandemics).

Miss Elena Venero Garcia

Elena
Venero Garcia

Research Assistant

Elena is a research assistant focusing on using mathematical modelling to study tuberculosis natural history along its interventions. Her background is in biology and epidemiology.

Research Degree Students
Mr Martin Harker

Martin
Harker

Research Fellow - Health Economics of TB

Martin is a health economist and research degree student. He is looking at modelling the potential effectiveness of preventive therapies for multidrug-resistant TB. His background is in biological sciences, maths and public health.

Naomi
Fuller

Research Student - MPhil/PhD - Epidemiology & Population Health

Naomi is a research degree student at LSHTM looking at using mathematical models built with parameters from experiments (UCL) to improve our understanding of drug resistant TB. Her background is in physics.

Follow Naomi on Twitter at: @naomimfuller.

Ms Kate LeGrand

Kate
LeGrand

Research Student - MPhil/PhD - Epidemiology & Population Health

Kate is a research degree student at LSHTM interested in modelling the impact of
interventions on TB transmission. Her background is in geospatial epidemiology
and medical anthropology. Follow Kate on Twitter at: @klegrand15.

Dr Alvaro Schwalb

Alvaro
Schwalb

Research Fellow

Alvaro is a research degree student and research fellow at LSHTM working on tuberculosis burden estimation. His background is in medicine and epidemiology. Follow Alvaro on Twitter at: @aschwalbc.

Miss Chaelin Kim

Chaelin
Kim

Research Student - MPhil/PhD - Epidemiology & Population Health
Research Degree Student

Chaelin is a research degree student interested in comparing different empirical treatment choices for drug-resistant tuberculosis through modelling. Her background is in policy and economic research.

Epidemiologist
Puck Pelzer

Puck Pelzer

Infectious Disease Epidemiologist

Puck is an infectious disease epidemiologist specializing in TB and vaccines. At LSHTM she explores implementation strategies for late-stage tuberculosis vaccine candidates with the aim of helping inform epidemiological mathematical modelling and health economic research. She currently runs the TIME model at KNCV.

Follow Puck on Twitter at: @PT_Pelzer.

Research Software Engineer
Dr Tomos Prys-Jones

Tomos
Prys-Jones

Senior Research Software Engineer
Research Software Engineer

Tom is developing software tools to better understand the impact of TB vaccination. Much of his work uses the group’s tbvax model and its running on high performance computing clusters. His background is in bioinformatics and paleoecology, specifically analysing ancient DNA and understanding the impact of historical mammal extinctions on current pathogen diversity.

Past group members
Christina Albertson

Christina Albertson

Former group member

Christina was a TB Modelling group administrator. She moved to a project administrator role within the School.

John Benest

John Benest

Former group member

John did a PhD with the group, researching the application of PK/PD methods to vaccine dose optimisation

Sean Cavany

Sean Cavany

Former group member

Sean did a PhD project with the group on TB contact tracing in the UK. He started a postdoc at the University of Notre Dame, USA in 2018.

Madeleine Clarkson

Madeleine Clarkson

Former group member

Madeleine worked as part of the TB Modelling and Analysis Consortium secretariat. She left to take up a PhD position at the University of St Andrews

Arminder Deol

Arminder Deol

Former group member

Arminder worked on projects on ventilation and TB vaccine modelling. She left in 2021 to take up a position as a Senior Epidemiologist at CEPI.

Pete Dodd

Pete Dodd

Former group member

Pete worked on TB/HIV modelling within the group. He left to join the School of Health and Related Research at Sheffield University.

Marek Lalli

Marek Lalli

Former group member

Marek worked on the TIME project, supporting country-level TB policy decisions. He left in 2019 to work for the World Health Organization as a Technical Officer in the TB Monitoring, Evaluation and Strategic Information Unit of the Global TB Programme.

Adrienne Keen

Adrienne Keen

Former group member

Adrienne did a PhD in TB modelling as part of the group. She moved on to a Senior Research Associate role at HEOR & Strategic Market Access (Greater Boston, USA).

Natascha Meunier

Natascha Meunier

Former group member

Natascha did a PhD on bovine TB. She went on to do a postdoc at the University of Edinburgh.

Christinah Mukandavire

Christinah Mukandavire

Former group member

Christinah worked on TB vaccine modelling. She left in 2022 to take up a position at CEPI

Debora Pedrazzoli

Debora Pedrazzoli

Former Group Member

Deborah worked on expanding the evidence base on the socioeconomic determinants of TB. She left to work at the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) at the World Health Organization.

Sophie Rhodes

Sophie Rhodes

Former group member

Sophie worked on mathematical modelling to inform vaccine dosing decisions. She left the group in 2021 and now works for Certara as a pharmacometric consultant.

Olivia Ross-Hurt

Olivia Ross-Hurt

Former group member

Olivia was a TB Modelling group administrator. She went on to be a sports fitness trainer and social media star.

Jamie Rudman

Jamie Rudman

Former group member

Jamie worked on the TIME project, supporting country-level TB policy decisions. He left the School in 2020, but continues to work as a consultant in TIME modelling.

Tina Sachs

Tina Sachs

Former group member

Tina was a TB Modelling group administrator. She left in 2018 to be a Project Manager at Stellenbosh University in South Africa.

Nabila Shaikh

Nabila Shaikh

Former group member

Nabila worked on multiple projects within the group ranging from subclinical disease research to country level TB epidemiology. She left the group in 2021 to work on the COVID-19 medical evidence generation team at Sanofi.

Chathika Weerasuriya

Chathika Weerasuriya

Former group member

Chathika worked on on the probable impact of new TB vaccines, their cost-effectiveness and their impact of multi-drug resistance. He left the School to work as a Principle Data Scientist at GSK, UK.

Danny Scarponi

Danny Scarponi

Former Group Member

Danny worked on a project to develop a history matching and model emulation R package. He left in 2023 to take up a position at CEPI.

Jon Emery

Jon Emery

Research Fellow
Former group member

Jon used modelling methods to infer the underlying natural history of TB from empirical data. He left in 2023 to work at the Atlantic Salmon Trust. 

Research
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Current areas of research 

Project Management
Christina Spencer, Miyo Hanazawa, Kristian Godfrey

Christina Spencer, Miyo Hanazawa, Kristian Godfrey

Our team oversees the financial, logistical and project management side of all the Group’s work.

Vaccines
Hira Tavir, Rebecca Clark, Puck Pelzer, Roel Bakker, Matt Quaife, Tom Sumner, Richard White.

Hira Tavir, Rebecca Clark, Puck Pelzer, Roel Bakker, Matt Quaife, Tom Sumner, Richard White.

The potential epi and economic impact of new and repurposed TB vaccines is a core area of our group’s work.

Drug resistance
Arkaprabha Gun, Chaelin Kim, Martin Harker, Naomi Fuller, Finn McQuaid, Gwen Knight

Arkaprabha Gun, Chaelin Kim, Martin Harker, Naomi Fuller, Finn McQuaid, Gwen Knight

Our group has a number of projects considering the role of drug resistance in TB, including the impact of different interventions and mechanisms behind the development of resistance.

HIV
Katherine Horton, Nicky McCreesh, Tom Sumner, Rein Houben, Richard White

Katherine Horton, Nicky McCreesh, Tom Sumner, Rein Houben, Richard White

A number of projects in our group consider the role that HIV plays as a risk factor for TB disease development, and its effects on transmission and healthcare usage.

Methodology
Nicky McCreesh, Tom Sumner, Richard White

Nicky McCreesh, Tom Sumner, Richard White

Our group conducts research into new methods for use in infectious disease modelling, with focuses on methods for calibration and sensitivity analysis of complex models, exploration of structural uncertainty in models, and modelling methods to improve vaccine dose decision-making.

Natural history
Hira Tavir, Elena Venero-Garcia, Alvaro Schwalb, Alexandra Richards, Jon Emery, Katherine Horton, Nicky McCreesh, Emilia Vynnycky, Rein Houben

Hira Tavir, Elena Venero-Garcia, Alvaro Schwalb, Alexandra Richards, Jon Emery, Katherine Horton, Nicky McCreesh, Emilia Vynnycky, Rein Houben

A number of people in our group have an interest in understanding the natural history of Mtb infection and TB disease. The team combines modelling tools with historical and contemporary data to better understand various aspects of TB natural history, including self-clearance of Mtb infection, subclinical disease. 

This work is predominantly funded by an ERC Starting Grant project TBornotTB.

Economics
Arkaprabha Gun, Chaelin Kim, Martin Harker, Lara Gosce, Matthew Quaife

Arkaprabha Gun, Chaelin Kim, Martin Harker, Matthew Quaife, Lara Gosce

Our work covers a range of methodological and empirical health economic topics applied to TB treatment and prevention. We are currently working on the economics of TB vaccines, digital adherence technologies, multidrug resistant TB, and long-term morbidity and mortality post-TB.  

TB Modelling Guidance, Coordination and Strategy
Finn McQuaid, Kristian Godfrey, Richard White

Kristian Godfrey, Finn McQuaid, Richard White

Our group hosts the TB Modelling and Analysis Consortium (TB MAC). TB MAC to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of TB care and prevention policy and practice at global and country levels, and to contribute to a better understanding of the epidemiological and health system processes that generate TB outcomes.

Trials
Chaelin Kim, Martin Harker, Naomi Fuller, Lara Gosce, Finn McQuaid, Tom Sumner, Gwen Knight, Richard White

Chaelin Kim, Martin Harker, Naomi Fuller, Lara Gosce, Finn McQuaid, Tom Sumner, Gwen Knight, Richard White

We collaborate with groups at LSHTM and elsewhere to use mathematical models to help design and interpret the results of clinical trials and make projections of population level impacts of interventions.

Gender
Alex Richards and Katherine Horton

Alex Richards, Katherine Horton

Our group seeks to improve understanding of gender disparities in TB burden and care pathways and the impact of those disparities across the population.

Molecular Epidemiology
Emilia Vynnycky

Emilia Vynnycky

Our group aims to use mathematical modelling and molecular epidemiology to improve our understanding of the natural history and epidemiology of tuberculosis.

Transmission
Lily O’Brian, Lara Gosce, Nicky McCreesh

Lily O’Brian, Lara Gosce, Nicky McCreesh

Our group has an active programme of research into understanding Mycobacterium transmission patterns, including collecting and using social contact data, and research into transmission locations.

Structural Determinants
Arkaprabha Gun, Rebecca Clark, Finn McQuaid, Rein Houben

Arkaprabha Gun, Rebecca Clark, Finn McQuaid, Rein Houben

Our group is interested in the role of undernutrition in TB, including modelling the impact of nutritional interventions as well as system shocks.

Burden estimation
Alvaro Schwalb, Finn McQuaid, Rein Houben, Richard White

Alvaro Schwalb, Finn McQuaid, Rein Houben, Richard White

Our group takes an active role in both the production, and support of production by others, of estimates of various measures of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and TB disease burden.

 

Research software
Tomos Prŷs-Jones and Nicky McCreesh

Tomos Prŷs-Jones and Nicky McCreesh

Our work focuses on building research software tools for use in infectious disease modelling. Currently, the group focuses on methods for calibrating complex models (hmer R package), as well as understanding the epidemiology of TB and vaccines countering the disease (tbvax R package).

Past areas of research

Policy and planning tools

Between 2013 and 2020, group members led development and implementation of the TIME modelling suite, a group of modelling tools to support TB policy decisions in LMIC. Widely used and useful for countries including South Africa, Indonesia, Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe, implementation of the tool was transferred to KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation. 

Contact person: Rein Houben

Immunology

Between 2015 and 2022 the group used within-host mathematical models to understand the dynamics of the immune response, predominantly after vaccination.

Contact person: Richard White

 

Publications
Publications (Feed)
Publications List
Rickman, HM; Phiri, MD; Feasey, HR A; Mbale, H; Nliwasa, M; Semphere, R; Chagaluka, G; FIELDING, K; Mwandumba, HC; HORTON, KC; NIGHTINGALE, ES; Henrion, MY R; Mbendera, K; Mpunga, JA; CORBETT, EL; MacPherson, P;
2024
PloS one, (2024).19 5 10.1371/journal.pone.0291215.
HORTON, KC; McCaffrey, T; RICHARDS, AS; SCHWALB, A; HOUBEN, RM G J;
2024
The Journal of infectious diseases (2024). 10.1093/infdis/jiae390.
Denholm, JT; Coussens, A; HOUBEN, RM G J; HORTON, KC; Wong, EB; Kendall, EA; Martinez, L; Musvosi, M; Zaidi, SM A;
2024
The international journal of tuberculosis and lung disease : the official journal of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, (2024).28 8 10.5588/ijtld.24.0081.
Coussens, AK; Zaidi, SM A; Allwood, BW; Dewan, PK; Gray, G; Kohli, M; Kredo, T; Marais, BJ; Marks, GB; Martinez, L; Ruhwald, M; Scriba, TJ; Seddon, JA; Tisile, P; Warner, DF; Wilkinson, RJ; Esmail, H; HOUBEN, RM G J; International Consensus for Early TB (ICE-TB) grou,;
2024
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, (2024).12 6 10.1016/S2213-2600(24)00028-6.
FULLER, NM; MCQUAID, CF; HARKER, MJ; Weerasuriya, CK; McHugh, TD; KNIGHT, GM;
2024
PLoS pathogens, (2024).20 4 10.1371/journal.ppat.1011574.
SUMNER, T; CLARK, RA; Mukandavire, C; Portnoy, A; Weerasuriya, CK; Bakker, R; Scarponi, D; Hatherill, M; Menzies, NA; WHITE, RG;
2024
Vaccine, (2024).42 6 10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.01.072.
WHITE, RG; Menzies, NA; Portnoy, A; CLARK, RA; Toscano, CM; Weller, C; Tufet Bayona, M; Silal, SP; Karron, RA; Lee, J-S; Excler, J-L; Lauer, JA; Giersing, B; Lambach, P; Hutubessy, R; JIT, M;
2024
Vaccines, (2024).12 4 10.3390/vaccines12040435.
CLARK, RA; Young, C; Palmer, S; Auma, E; Malhotra, S; Limaye, R; Giersing, B; Schrager, L; Voss, G; Tiemersma, E; Frick, M; Edoka, I; Dagnew, AF; Nkhoma, T; Pelzer, PT; WHITE, RG;
2024
Frontiers in Tuberculosis, (2024).2, 10.3389/ftubr.2024.1384036.
CLARK, RA; SUMNER, T; Weerasuriya, CK; Bakker, R; Scriba, TJ; WHITE, RG;
2024
The Journal of infectious diseases, (2024).230 1 10.1093/infdis/jiae089.
Training
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An Introduction to Infectious Disease Modelling book cover

Members of the TB Modelling Group lead three general courses on infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine:

Group members also lead an introductory course – Introduction to Tuberculosis Modelling – aimed as an introduction to TB modelling. This course is usually run annually as a post-graduate course at the Union World Conference on Lung Health.

Emilia Vynnycky and Richard White, both members of the group, have also written an introductory infectious disease modelling textbook – An Introduction to Infectious Disease Modelling – which has also been released as an ebook.