Epidemiology

Epidemiology

In the Department, Drs.  Nathaniel Tablante  and Mostafa Ghanem focus on epidemiology. Dr. Tablante is investigating knowledge gaps and risk factors associated with economically important poultry diseases and developing cost-effective, practical strategies to prevent and control them. Dr. Ghanem’s research is in the area of molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases. His research program focuses on the development of advanced molecular typing schemes using next-generation sequencing for typing and epidemiological investigation of Infectious diseases of economic and public health significance. He is interested in harnessing the application of advanced molecular diagnostic and genotyping techniques in surveillance, prevention, and control of infectious diseases to improve the health and wellbeing of humans and animals.

The specific aims of the epidemiology research program include the following: develop novel diagnostic approaches for rapid identification and characterization of bacterial pathogens, advance strain typing schemes for outbreak investigation and routine surveillance, use new tools and approaches to improve the current understanding of different risk factors controlling the emergence, evolution, spread and persistence of bacteria within animal production systems and different environments, and assess different intervention strategies for mitigating the negative impacts of infectious diseases.