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
editEMOD 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
edit- ^ Cheney, Catherine (3 December 2020). "The Gates Foundation leans into disease modeling". Devex. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
- ^ a b Sandi Doughton (March 15, 2020). "How big will the coronavirus outbreak get? This Bellevue scientist is figuring that out". The Seattle Times.
- ^ Eaton et al. 2015.
- ^ Ross Reynolds (March 14, 2014). "Improving The Battle Against Infectious Diseases" (audio). Seattle: KUOW-FM.
- ^ Bershteyn et al. 2018.
- ^
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.
- ^ 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
- ^ Gillian Friedman (April 3, 2020). "Coronavirus: How the West Coast is winning, and what Utah can learn". Deseret News. Salt Lake City.
- ^ 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
edit- 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
External links
edit- Official website
- EMOD on GitHub
- COVID-19 Chapter 11: Modeling, This Podcast Will Kill You, May 4, 2020, interview with Dr. Mike Famulare from the Institute for Disease Modeling recorded April 29, 2020 starts at 28:30