CNCS Center for Nonlinear and Complex Systems
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Katharina V. Koelle, Associate Professor of Biology and Biology

Katharina V. Koelle

Please note: Katharina has left the "CNCS: Center for nonlinear and complex systems" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

My research focuses on the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases. I use a combination of mathematical and statistical approaches to understand the processes driving the disease dynamics of pathogens. My interests include developing models to improve our understanding of how immune escape and other viral phenotypes impact the ecological dynamics of RNA viruses, and, in turn, how these ecological dynamics create selection pressures on viral pathogens. Additional interests include developing within-host models of viral dynamics and evolution and fitting these models to empirical data. Current research projects focus primarily on influenza and dengue.

Contact Info:
Office Location:  130 Science Drive, Room 137, Duke Box 90338, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address: send me a message
Web Page:  http://sites.duke.edu/koelle/

Education:

BSStanford University1997
Specialties:

Ecology and Population Biology
Evolution
Research Interests: Theoretical biology; ecology and evolution of infectious diseases

My research focuses on the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases. I use a combination of mathematical and statistical approaches to understand the processes that give rise to the dynamic and evolutionary patterns of pathogens. More specifically, my interests fall into three main areas: 1) The regulation of infectious disease dynamics, 2) The determinants of genetic and antigenic diversity patterns in pathogen populations, and 3) Pathogen adaptation to environmental change. The systems I have worked most closely with include Vibrio cholerae (the bacterium that causes cholera) and influenza. Most of my current research focuses on the development of quantitative models to further our understanding of rapidly-mutating RNA viruses.

Keywords:

Antigenic Variation • Antigens, Viral • Computer Simulation • Evolution, Molecular • Genetics, Population • Genotype • Immune Evasion • Immunity, Innate • Influenza, Human • Models, Genetic • Models, Immunological • Phylogeny • Population Dynamics • Viral Load

Curriculum Vitae
Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

  • Rotem Ben-Shachar  
  • Ashley Sobel  
  • Stacy Scholle  
  • David A. Rasmussen  
Postdocs Mentored

  • Jayna Raghwani (February, 2012 - February, 2013)  
  • Oliver Ratmann (October, 2009 - July, 2012)  
  • Virginia Pasour (August, 2008 - October, 2009)  
Recent Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Sobel Leonard, A; Weissman, DB; Greenbaum, B; Ghedin, E; Koelle, K, Transmission Bottleneck Size Estimation from Pathogen Deep-Sequencing Data, with an Application to Human Influenza A Virus, edited by Lyles, DS, Journal of virology, vol. 91 no. 14 (July, 2017), pp. e00171-17-e00171-17 [doi]
  2. Sobel Leonard, A; McClain, MT; Smith, GJD; Wentworth, DE; Halpin, RA; Lin, X; Ransier, A; Stockwell, TB; Das, SR; Gilbert, AS; Lambkin-Williams, R; Ginsburg, GS; Woods, CW; Koelle, K; Illingworth, CJR, The effective rate of influenza reassortment is limited during human infection., PLoS pathogens, vol. 13 no. 2 (February, 2017), pp. e1006203 [doi]  [abs]
  3. Sobel Leonard, A; McClain, MT; Smith, GJD; Wentworth, DE; Halpin, RA; Lin, X; Ransier, A; Stockwell, TB; Das, SR; Gilbert, AS; Lambkin-Williams, R; Ginsburg, GS; Woods, CW; Koelle, K, Deep Sequencing of Influenza A Virus from a Human Challenge Study Reveals a Selective Bottleneck and Only Limited Intrahost Genetic Diversification., Journal of virology, vol. 90 no. 24 (December, 2016), pp. 11247-11258 [doi]  [abs]
  4. Flasche, S; Jit, M; Rodríguez-Barraquer, I; Coudeville, L; Recker, M; Koelle, K; Milne, G; Hladish, TJ; Perkins, TA; Cummings, DAT; Dorigatti, I; Laydon, DJ; España, G; Kelso, J; Longini, I; Lourenco, J; Pearson, CAB; Reiner, RC; Mier-Y-Terán-Romero, L; Vannice, K; Ferguson, N, The Long-Term Safety, Public Health Impact, and Cost-Effectiveness of Routine Vaccination with a Recombinant, Live-Attenuated Dengue Vaccine (Dengvaxia): A Model Comparison Study., edited by von Seidlein, L, PLoS medicine, vol. 13 no. 11 (November, 2016), pp. e1002181 [doi]  [abs]
  5. Ben-Shachar, R; Schmidler, S; Koelle, K, Drivers of Inter-individual Variation in Dengue Viral Load Dynamics., edited by Ferguson, NM, PLoS computational biology, vol. 12 no. 11 (November, 2016), pp. e1005194 [doi]  [abs]