In the last months of 2019, Majid Bani Yaghoub, Ph.D., planned his mathematics curriculum to study a new virus that was beginning to spread in China. He knew mathematical modeling and analysis based on a real-world situation would be a good fit with his students in Graduate Differential Equations.

即使在那时, before COVID-19 became a common topic of global study, Bani’ s students were using optimal control theory to predict the best way to minimize spread. Bani is furthering his work through interdisciplinary research to develop and implement mathematical and computational models to optimize control and prevention of infection in healthcare settings.

Bani has assembled researchers from the UMKC Division of Computing, Analytics and Mathematics; the UMKC Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics; the UMKC School of Medicine; University Health; the Kansas City, 密苏里州, Health Department; and the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine to form the Midwest Virtual Laboratory of Pathogen Transmission in Healthcare Settings (MVL-PATHS), an interdisciplinary research collaborative.

疾病控制中心 授予MVL-PATHS 三年879美元,162 grant to develop a new generation of mathematical and computational models of infectious diseases. The team will use the One Health modeling approach, which incorporates interconnections between people, 动物, 植物和它们共享的环境.

Bani believes the One Health approach – a process that recognizes the health interconnections among people, 动物, 植物和它们共享的环境 – is crucial to identify risk factors for transmission of healthcare-associated infections.

The research team will be working with healthcare providers to record their movements, how much time they spend with patients and other factors in order to collect data that will make models more accurate than the current models.

“We’re not interested in watching individuals,” he says. “The models will identify high-risk movement patterns  and hotspots  at a hospital so that we can have better control of asymptomatic spread of infection.”

The research could foster a healthier general population, but the team is paying special attention to vulnerable populations.

“已经, the research shows that people who are working in nursing homes may work at multiple locations, so it’s possible they are taking infections from one nursing home to another. 这不是指责别人. The research can help us discover ways that we can improve the situation.”

The interdisciplinary team is critical to the research success.

“This is a great start for the UMKC School of Science and Engineering and a direct result of the university’s restructuring through 世界杯赌场盘口向前巴尼说。. “The COVID-19 pandemic taught us many lessons, and one of the key lessons was that math models are useful, 尽管它们远非完美. There is a need to create a new generation of math models, computational models and tools that can become more accurate, 更可靠的.”

But the work goes beyond research of what has already occurred.

“The essence of this project is to develop a virtual laboratory for simulation of disease spread, and at the same time train PhDs who can implement the virtual laboratory in health institutes, and work with the Center for Disease Control and health departments巴尼说。.

“There were many things that we could have done to lessen the impact of COVID-19. The key now is to learn from that experience and use the One Health modeling approach rather than looking at an individual farm or hospital. We must recognize that the world is fully connected, and we need to look at these problems as one big picture and see how these different units and communities can work together.”