At the Spatial Epidemiology Lab (SpELL), we study the effect of spatial factors on the emergence, spread, persistence and evolution of diseases and invasive species. The understanding of key spatial factors, such as climatic, ecological or anthropogenic variables, and their integration into spatial and/or molecular approaches is used to predict the geographical distribution of risk and the environmental factors impacting the dispersal history and dynamic of pathogen spreads, which can contribute to better targetted prevention, surveillance and control measures. We also work toward the development, improvement and application of methods in spatial modelling of biological invasions, ecological niche modelling for risk mapping, and landscape phylogeography. The SpELL is also involved in the assembly of large-scale data sets on farm animals and in studies dedicated to the conservation of insect pollinators.
Delighted to welcome new researchers in our interdisciplinary team at the Spatial Epidemiology Lab
On January 30 2025 by Simon Dellicour
The Spatial Epidemiology Lab is delighted to welcome several new researchers in its interdisciplinary team: Claire Lescoat who joined the SpELL in January 2025 as a postdoctoral researcher on the ImmuReach project funded by Innoviris and conducted in collaboration with Bluesquare, Bastien De Tandt who started his PhD project in October 2024 on the response of cold-adapted pollinators to natural and anthropic climatic oscillations, Kyla Serres who just started her PhD project at the SpELL and the Interuniversity Institute of Bioinformatics (IB)2 on the environmental factors drive the emergence and circulation of dengue virus in Europe, as well as Cedric Marsboom from Avia-GIS who started in October 2024 a PhD project dedicated to an integrated approach for mitigating the impact of arbovirus invasions into Europe. Read more...
How fast are viruses spreading in the wild? Checked out our new study now published in PLoS Biology
On December 03 2024 by Simon Dellicour
Our new study entitled “How fast are viruses spreading in the wild?” has just been published in PLoS Biology. Genomic data collected from viral outbreaks can be exploited to reconstruct the dispersal history of viral lineages in a two-dimensional space using continuous phylogeographic inference. These spatially explicit reconstructions can subsequently be used to estimate dispersal metrics that can be informative of the dispersal dynamics and the capacity to spread among hosts. Read more...
We are hiring! A PhD student position is open at the SpELL to work on the avian flu VIVACE project
On October 31 2024 by Simon Dellicour
The present PhD student position and associated research project is part of the 13 PhD projects of the VIVACE Doctoral Network, funded by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie action of the Horizon Europe programme. Context on the VIVACE doctoral network While outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIV) in Europe used to be rare and geographically contained, the situation has dramatically changed in the last few years with thousands of outbreaks reported in domestic poultry and wild birds. Read more...
Spatially-explicit phylogeographic analyses can be used to reconstruct the dispersal history of viral lineages. Over the last years, we started exploiting such phylogeographic reconstructions to investigate the impact on environmental factors on the dispersal dynamic of viral lineages (dispersal velocity, dispersal position, and dispersal frequency). Furthermore, we also aim to use phylogeographic reconstruction to assess hypothetical intervention strategies in the context of viral epidemics.
See moreWe further develop and applies methodologies to conduct ecological niche modelling for the risk mapping of infectious diseases. Our research initially focused on avian influenza, with a particular emphasis on the role of agro-ecological factors on its emergence and persistence, but we have then also worked on other important livestock diseases such as bluetongue, bovine tuberculosis, and Nipah virus infections. More recently, we have conducted studies dedicated to the impact of climate and land-use changes on the distribution of pathogens of OneHealth importance such as the Lassa virus in Africa and the West Nile virus in Europe.
See moreInvading organisms spreading though an heterogeneous landscape are difficult to study using conventional statistical models. We aim to review existing methods, to develop new methodologies to study those type of data, and to compare all methods in their capacity to detect the influence of landscape heterogeneity on the pattern of spread. In particular, we have developed an analytical framework that allows testing the impact of continuous environmental layer as well as barriers on a wavefront progression.
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