Institute for Disease Modeling

Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM) is an institute within the Global Health Division of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Established in 2008 as part of the Global Good Fund, a non-profit subsidiary of Intellectual Ventures (IV) funded by Bill and Melinda Gates, IDM has transitioned in mid-2020 to the Gates Foundation.[1]

IDM specializes in mathematical modelling of infectious disease and other quantitative global health research. Its models include malaria, polio, measles, COVID-19[2] and HIV (with EMOD). IDM releases source code of their stable models to the public.[3][4] While at IV, the institute was located in Bellevue, Washington. After the outbreak of COVID-19 in Washington State, IDM has transitioned to all-remote work with no physical offices. It will eventually relocate to the Gates Foundation's main office in Seattle.[citation needed]

Disease modeling software

EMOD is the group's individual-based disease modeling software (not a compartmental model) initially coded c. 2005. It has been released to the public as open-source software. The software can model malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, measles, dengue, polio and typhoid.[5]

In 2020, IDM developed a designated COVID-19 agent-based model named "Covasim." It was used initially to advise on decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic in Oregon and in Washington State,[2][6] gaining national attention.[7][8] Covasim, coded in Python, is open-source and has been used by independent researchers around the world.[9]

References

  1. ^ Cheney, Catherine (3 December 2020). "The Gates Foundation leans into disease modeling". Devex. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  2. ^ a b Sandi Doughton (March 15, 2020). "How big will the coronavirus outbreak get? This Bellevue scientist is figuring that out". The Seattle Times.
  3. ^ Eaton et al. 2015.
  4. ^ Ross Reynolds (March 14, 2014). "Improving The Battle Against Infectious Diseases" (audio). Seattle: KUOW-FM.
  5. ^ Bershteyn et al. 2018.
  6. ^ Tess Riski (March 31, 2020). "How Bad Will Oregon's Outbreak Get? It Depends on Which Experts You Ask". Willamette Week. Two reliable studies show divergent COVID-19 outcomes in Oregon.
  7. ^ Todd Bishop; Taylor Soper (April 15, 2020), "As Washington state COVID cases keep falling, here's the data driving the ongoing 'stay home' order", Geekwire
  8. ^ Gillian Friedman (April 3, 2020). "Coronavirus: How the West Coast is winning, and what Utah can learn". Deseret News. Salt Lake City.
  9. ^ Kerr, Cliff; Mistry, Dina; et al. (2021). "Covasim: an agent-based model of COVID-19 dynamics and interventions". medRxiv 10.1101/2020.05.10.20097469v1.

Sources

  • Jeffrey W Eaton; Nicolas Bacaër; Anna Bershteyn; Valentina Cambiano; Anne Cori; Rob E Dorrington; et al. (October 2015), "Assessment of epidemic projections using recent HIV survey data in South Africa: a validation analysis of ten mathematical models of HIV epidemiology in the antiretroviral therapy era", The Lancet, 3 (10): e598 – e608, doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(15)00080-7, hdl:10044/1/33879, PMID 26385301
  • Bershteyn, Anna; Gerardin, Jaline; Bridenbecker, Daniel; Lorton, Christopher W; Bloedow, Jonathan; Baker, Robert S; Chabot-Couture, Guillaume; Chen, Ye; Fischle, Thomas; Frey, Kurt; Gauld, Jillian S; Hu, Hao; Izzo, Amanda S; Klein, Daniel J; Lukacevic, Dejan; McCarthy, Kevin A; Miller, Joel C; Ouedraogo, Andre Lin; Perkins, T Alex; Steinkraus, Jeffrey; ten Bosch, Quirine A; Ting, Hung-Fu; Titova, Svetlana; Wagner, Bradley G; Welkhoff, Philip A; Wenger, Edward A; Wiswell, Christian N (2018), "Implementation and applications of EMOD, an individual-based multi-disease modeling platform", Pathogens and Disease, 76 (5), doi:10.1093/femspd/fty059, ISSN 2049-632X, PMC 6067119, PMID 29986020


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