Biology subjects

Jones, K.

Publications and source records attributed to Jones, K..

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

bioRxiv2020

Calorie Restriction Prevents Age-Related Changes in the Intestinal Microbiota

The effect of calorie restriction (CR) on the microbiome, fecal metabolome, and colon transcriptome of adult and old male mice was compared. Life-long CR increased microbial diversity and the Bacteriodetes/Fermicutes ratio and prevented the age-related changes in the microbiota, shifting it to a younger microbial and fecal metabolite profile in both C57BL/6JN and B6D2F1 mice. Old mice fed CR were enriched in the Rikenellaceae, S24-7 and Bacteroides families. The changes in the microbiome that occur with age and CR were initiated in the cecum and further modified in the colon. Short-term CR in adult mice had a minor effect on the microbiome but a major effect on the transcriptome of the colon mucosa. These data suggest that the primary impact of CR is on the physiological status of the gastrointestinal system, maintaining it in a more youthful state, which in turn results in a more diverse and youthful microbiome.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2020

The Species Awareness Index (SAI): a Wikipedia-derived conservation culturomics metric for public biodiversity awareness

Threats to global biodiversity are well-known, but slowing currents rates of biodiversity loss remains an ongoing challenge. The Aichi Targets set out 20 goals on which the international community should act to alleviate biodiversity decline, one of which (Target 1) aimed to raise public awareness of the importance of biodiversity. Whilst conventional indicators for Target 1 are of low spatial and temporal coverage, conservation culturomics has demonstrated how biodiversity awareness can be quantified at the global scale. Following the Living Planet Index methodology, here we introduced the Species Awareness Index (SAI), an index of changing species awareness on Wikipedia. We calculated this index at the page level for 41,197 IUCN species across 10 Wikipedia languages, incorporating over 2 billion views. Bootstrapped indices for the page level SAI show that overall awareness of biodiversity is marginally increasing, although there are differences among taxonomic classes and languages. Among taxonomic classes, overall awareness of reptiles is increasing fastest, and amphibians slowest. Among languages, overall species awareness for the Japanese Wikipedias is increasing fastest, and the Chinese and German Wikipedias slowest. Although awareness of species on Wikipedia as a whole is increasing, and is significantly higher in traded species, over the period 2016-2020 change in interest appears not to be strongly related to the trade of species or animal pollinators. As a data source for public biodiversity awareness Wikipedia could be integrated into the Biodiversity Engagement Indicator, thereby incorporating a more direct link to biodiversity itself.

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2020

Chronic exposure to TNF reprograms cell signaling pathways in fibroblast-like synoviocytes by establishing long-term inflammatory memory

ABSTRACTFibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) play a critical role in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Chronic inflammation induces transcriptomic and epigenetic modifications that imparts a persistent catabolic phenotype to the FLS, despite their dissociation from the inflammatory environment. We analyzed high throughput gene expression and chromatin accessibility data from human and mouse FLS from our and other studies available on public repositories, with the goal of identifying the persistently reprogrammed signaling pathways driven by chronic inflammation. We found that the gene expression changes induced by short-term tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) treatment were largely sustained in the FLS exposed to chronic inflammation. These changes that included both activation and repression of gene expression, were accompanied by the remodeling of chromatin accessibility. The sustained activated genes (SAGs) included established pro-inflammatory signaling components known to act at multiple levels of NF-kappaB, STAT and AP-1 signaling cascades. Interestingly, the sustained repressed genes (SRGs) included critical mediators and targets of the BMP signaling pathway. We thus identified sustained repression of BMP signaling as a unique constituent of the long-term inflammatory memory induced by chronic inflammation. We postulate that simultaneous targeting of these activated and repressed signaling pathways may be necessary to combat RA persistence.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.View Full Text

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Disease Risk Analysis in sea turtles: A baseline study to inform conservation efforts

The impact of a range of different threats has resulted in the listing of six out of seven sea turtle species on the IUCN Red List of endangered species. Disease risk analysis (DRA) tools are designed to provide objective, repeatable and documented assessment of the disease risks for a population and measures to reduce these risks through management options. To the best of our knowledge, DRAs have not previously been published for sea turtles, although disease is reported to contribute to sea turtle population decline. Here, a comprehensive list of health hazards is provided for all seven species of sea turtles. The possible risk these hazards pose to the health of sea turtles were assessed and "One Health" aspects of interacting with sea turtles were also investigated. The risk assessment was undertaken in collaboration with more than 30 experts in the field including veterinarians, microbiologists, social scientists, epidemiologists and stakeholders, in the form of two international workshops and one local workshop. The general finding of the DRA was the distinct lack of knowledge regarding a link between the presence of pathogens and diseases manifestation in sea turtles. A higher rate of disease in immunocompromised individuals was repeatedly reported and a possible link between immunosuppression and environmental contaminants as a result of anthropogenic influences was suggested. Society based conservation initiatives and as a result the cultural and social aspect of interacting with sea turtles appeared to need more attention and research. A risk management workshop was carried out to acquire the insights of local policy makers about management options for the risks relevant to Queensland and the options were evaluated considering their feasibility and effectiveness. The sea turtle DRA presented here, is a structured guide for future risk assessments to be used in specific scenarios such as translocation and head-starting programs.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Sox2 modulation increases naive pluripotency plasticity

Induced pluripotency provides a tool to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying the establishment, maintenance and differentiation of naive pluripotent stem cells (nPSCs). Here, we report that self-renewal of nPSCs requires minimal Sox2 expression (Sox2-low). Sox2-low nPSCs do not show impaired neuroectoderm specification and differentiate efficiently in vitro into all embryonic germ lineages. Strikingly, Sox2-low cells also differentiate towards the trophoblast lineage both in vitro and in vivo. At the single-cell level self-renewing Sox2-low nPSCs exhibit a homogeneous naive molecular signature. However, they also display a basal trophoblast molecular signature and decreased ability of Oct4 to bind naive-associated regulatory sequences compared to control cells. These features underlie observed enhanced cell potency upon the removal of self-renewing cues. In sum, this work defines Sox2 as a restrictor of developmental potential and suggests perturbation of the naive pluripotent network as an underlying cause of increased cell potency. HighlightsO_LILow Sox2 expression is sufficient for naive pluripotent stem cell self-renewal C_LIO_LILow Sox2 expression does not impair neurectoderm differentiation in vitro C_LIO_LILow Sox2 expression impairs Oct4 genomic occupancy C_LIO_LILow Sox2 expression increases naive pluripotent cell plasticity in vitro and in vivo C_LI

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Heterogeneity and targeted therapy-induced adaptations in lung cancer revealed by longitudinal single-cell RNA sequencing

Lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer mortality, exhibits heterogeneity that enables adaptability, limits therapeutic success, and remains incompletely understood. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) of metastatic lung cancer was performed using 44 tumor biopsies obtained longitudinally from 27 patients before and during targeted therapy. Over 20,000 cancer and tumor microenvironment (TME) single-cell profiles exposed a rich and dynamic tumor ecosystem. scRNAseq of cancer cells illuminated targetable oncogenes beyond those detected clinically. Cancer cells surviving therapy as residual disease (RD) expressed an alveolar-regenerative cell signature suggesting a therapy-induced primitive cell state transition, whereas those present at on-therapy progressive disease (PD) upregulated kynurenine, plasminogen, and gap junction pathways. Active T-lymphocytes and decreased macrophages were present at RD and immunosuppressive cell states characterized PD. Biological features revealed by scRNAseq were biomarkers of clinical outcomes in independent cohorts. This study highlights how therapy-induced adaptation of the multi-cellular ecosystem of metastatic cancer shapes clinical outcomes.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2019

A cellular atlas of skeletal muscle regeneration and aging

Skeletal muscle stem cells (MuSCs) are essential for muscle regeneration and maintenance. While MuSCs typically are quiescent and reside in an asymmetric niche between the basal lamina and myofiber membrane: to repair or maintain muscle, MuSCs activate, proliferate and differentiate to repair injured tissue, and self-renew to replenish MuSCs. Little is known about the timing of MuSC self-renewal during muscle regeneration and the cellular processes that direct MuSC self-renewal fate decisions. Using DNA-based lineage tracing, we find that during muscle regeneration most MuSCs self-renew from 5-7 days post-injury, following fusion of myogenic cells to regenerate myofibers. Single cell sequencing of the myogenic cells in regenerating muscle reveals that non-cell autonomous signaling networks regulate MuSC self-renewal allowing identification of asymmetrically distributed proteins in self-renewing MuSCs. Cell transplantation experiments verified that the regenerating environment signals MuSC self-renewal. Our results define the critical window for MuSC self-renewal emphasizing the temporal contribution of the regenerative muscle environment on MuSC fate, establishing a new paradigm for restoring the MuSC pool during muscle regeneration.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Understanding the population structure of the GHQ-12: evidence for multidimensionality using Bayesian and Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling from a large-scale UK population survey.

Mental health and its complexity, measurement and social determinants are increasingly important avenues of research for social scientists. Quantitative social science commonly investigates mental health as captured by population screening metrics. One of the most common of these metrics is the 12-Item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Despite its canonical use as an outcome of interest in social science, the traditional use of the summed scores of summed questionnaires carries empirical and substantive assumptions which are often not fully considered or justified in the research. We outline the implications of these assumptions and the restrictions imposed by traditional modelling techniques and advocate for a more nuanced approach to population mental health inference. We use novel Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling (ESEM) on a large, representative UK sample taken from the first wave of the Understanding Society Survey, totalling 40,452 respondents. We use this to exemplify the potential of traditional, restrictive assumptions to bias conclusions and policy recommendations. ESEM analysis identifies a 4-factor structure for the GHQ-12, including a newly proposed \"Emotional Coping\" dimension. This structure is then tested against leading proposed factor structures from the literature and is demonstrated to perform better across all metrics, under both Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian estimation. Moreover, the proposed factors are more substantively dissimilar than those retrieved from previous literature. The results highlight the inferential limitations of using simple summed scores for mental health measurement. Use of the highlighted methods in combination with population studies offers quantitative social scientists the opportunity to explore predictors and patterns of underlying processes of population mental health outcomes, explicitly addressing the complexity and measurement error inherent to mental health analysis.

epidemiology↗

bioRxiv2019

Differential effects of emerging broad-spectrum streetlight technologies on landscape-scale bat activity

Urbanization has greatly reduced the extent of high quality habitat available to wildlife with detrimental consequences documented across a range of taxa. Roads and artificial lighting regimes are dominant features of the modern environment, and there is currently a rapid worldwide transition towards energy-efficient, broad-spectrum white-light streetlight technologies such as metal halide (MH) and more recently, light-emitting diode (LED), despite little being known about their broad ecological impacts. Here, in a five-year citizen science study across the island of Jersey, we combine detailed lighting and habitat data with ultrasonic bat survey data collected from 2011 to 2015 (before and after a LED lighting technology transition), to analyse the landscape-scale effects of different broad-spectrum streetlight technologies on activity of a widespread, generalist bat species. In contrast to many experimental studies, we show that the local density of both traditional yellow high-pressure sodium (HPS) and more modern LED streetlights have significant negative effects on activity of the common pipistrelle (Pipistrelluspipistrellus) compared to unlit areas, while accounting for spatial bias, bat population trends over time, surrounding habitat type and road-type. In contrast, we find no discernable impact of the density of ultra-violet emitting MH lighting on bat activity. This is the first large-scale evidence that emerging artificial lighting technologies have differential impacts on activity, even for a bat species generally characterised as light-tolerant and commonly found in urban areas. Importantly, our landscape-level approach also demonstrates that the degree of urbanization and road type have even larger negative impacts on bat activity, independent of artificial lighting regime. Our findings emphasise the need for improving landscape-scale understanding of the ecological impacts of new lighting technologies prior to widespread uptake, and have important implications for future streetlight installation programmes and urban planning more generally.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Doublecotin-like kinase 1 increases chemoresistance of colorectal cancer cells through the anti-apoptosis pathway

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer diagnosed and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. About 50% of CRC patients relapsed after surgical resection and ultimately died of metastatic disease. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are believed to be the primary reason for the recurrence of CRC. Specific stem cell marker, doublecortin-like kinase 1 (DCLK1) plays critical roles in initiating tumorigenesis, facilitating tumor progression, and promoting metastasis of CRC. It is up-regulated in CRC and up-regulation of DCLK1 indicates poor prognosis. Whether DCLK1 is correlated with enhanced chemoresistance of CRC cells is unclear. Our research aims to reveal association of DCLK1 with chemoresistance of CRC cells and the underlying molecular mechanisms. In order to achieve our goal, we established stable DCLK1 over-expression cells (DCLK1+) using the HCT116 cells (WT). DCLK1+ and WT cells were treated with 5-Fluorouracil (5-Fu) at different doses for 24 or 48 hours. MTT assay was used to evaluate cell viability and IC50 of 5-Fu was determined. Quantitative real time PCR was applied to determine gene expression of caspase-3 (casp-3), caspase-4 (casp-4), and caspase-10 (casp-10). Cleaved casp-3 expression was investigated using Western blot and immunofluorescence. Our results demonstrated that IC50 of 5-Fu for the DCLK1+ cells was significantly higher than that of the WT cells for both 24 and 48-hour treatment (P=0.002 and 0.048 respectively), indicating increased chemoresistance of the DCLK1+ cells. Gene expression of casp-3, casp-4, and casp-10 were significantly inhibited in the DCLK1+ cells after 5-Fu treatment compared to the WT cells (P=7.616e-08, 1.575e-05 and 5.307e-08, respectively). Cleaved casp-3 amount and casp-3 positive cells were significantly decreased in the DCLK1+ cells after 5-Fu treatment compared to the WT cells (P=0.015). In conclusion, our results demonstrated that DCLK1 overexpression enhanced the chemoresistance of CRC cells to 5-Fu treatment by suppressing gene expression of key caspases in the apoptosis pathway and activation of apoptosis pathway. DCLK1 can be an intriguing therapeutic target for the effective treatment of CRC patients.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Immune gene expression profiling reveals heterogeneity in luminal breast tumors

Disease heterogeneity of immune gene expression patterns of luminal breast cancer (BC) has not been well studied. We performed immune gene expression profiling of tumor and adjacent normal tissue in 92 Asian luminal BC patients and identified three distinct immune subtypes. Tumors in one subtype exhibited signs of T-cell activation, lower ESR1/ESR2 expression ratio and higher expression of immune checkpoint genes, nonsynonymous mutation burden, APOBEC-signature mutations, and increasing body mass index compared to other luminal tumors. Tumors in a second subtype were characterized by increased expression of interferon-stimulated genes and enrichment for TP53 somatic mutations. The presence of three immune subtypes within luminal BC was replicated in cases drawn from The Cancer Genome Atlas and a Korean breast cancer study. Our findings suggest that immune gene expression and associated genomic features could be useful to further stratify luminal BC beyond the current luminal A/B classification.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2018

Comprehensive Immune Monitoring of Clinical Trials to Advance Human Immunotherapy

The success of immunotherapy has led to a myriad of new clinical trials. Connected to these trials are efforts to discover biomarkers providing mechanistic insight and predictive signatures for personalization. Still, the plethora of immune monitoring technologies can face investigator bias, missing unanticipated cellular responses in limited clinical material. We here present a mass cytometry workflow for standardized, systems-level biomarker discovery in immunotherapy trials. To broadly enumerate human immune cell identity and activity, we established and extensively assessed a reference panel of 33 antibodies to cover major cell subsets, simultaneously quantifying activation and immune checkpoint molecules in a single assay. The resulting assay enumerated [≥] 98% of peripheral immune cells with [≥] 4 positively identifying antigens. Robustness and reproducibility were demonstrated on multiple samples types, across research centers and by orthogonal measurements. Using automated analysis, we monitored complex immune dynamics, identifying signatures in bone-marrow transplantation associated graft-versus-host disease. This validated and available workflow ensures comprehensive immunophenotypic analysis, data comparability and will accelerate biomarker discovery in immunomodulatory therapeutics.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2018

From copy number alterations to structural variants: the evolutionary cascade of papillary renal cell carcinomas

Intratumor heterogeneity (ITH) and tumor evolution have been well described for clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCC), but they are less studied for other kidney cancer subtypes. Here we investigate ITH and clonal evolution of papillary renal cell carcinoma (pRCC) and rarer kidney cancer subtypes, integrating whole-genome sequencing and DNA methylation data. In 29 tumors, up to 10 samples from the center to the periphery of each tumor, and metastatic samples in 2 cases, enable phylogenetic analysis of spatial features of clonal expansion, which shows congruent patterns of genomic and epigenomic evolution. In contrast to previous studies of ccRCC, in pRCC driver gene mutations and most arm-level somatic copy number alterations (SCNAs) are clonal. These findings suggest that a single biopsy would be sufficient to identify the important genetic drivers and targeting large-scale SCNAs may improve pRCC treatment, which is currently poor. While type 1 pRCC displays near absence of structural variants (SVs), the more aggressive type 2 pRCC and the rarer subtypes have numerous SVs, which should be pursued for prognostic significance.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2018

Nanopore native RNA sequencing of a human poly(A) transcriptome

High throughput cDNA sequencing technologies have dramatically advanced our understanding of transcriptome complexity and regulation. However, these methods lose information contained in biological RNA because the copied reads are often short and because modifications are not carried forward in cDNA. We address these limitations using a native poly(A) RNA sequencing strategy developed by Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT). Our study focused on poly(A) RNA from the human cell line GM12878, generating 9.9 million aligned sequence reads. These native RNA reads had an aligned N50 length of 1294 bases, and a maximum aligned length of over 21,000 bases. A total of 78,199 high-confidence isoforms were identified by combining long nanopore reads with short higher accuracy Illumina reads. We describe strategies for assessing 3' poly(A) tail length, base modifications and transcript haplotypes from nanopore RNA data. Together, these nanopore-based techniques are poised to deliver new insights into RNA biology.\n\nDISCLOSURESMA holds shares in Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT). MA is a paid consultant to ONT. REW, WT, TG, JRT, JQ, NJL, JTS, NS, AB, MA, HEO, MJ, and ML received reimbursement for travel, accommodation and conference fees to speak at events organised by ONT. NL has received an honorarium to speak at an ONT company meeting. WT has two patents (8,748,091 and 8,394,584) licensed to Oxford Nanopore. JTS, ML and MA received research funding from ONT.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2018

Giardia’s ventral disc is hyperstable and composed of over 80 disc-associated proteins

Giardia is a common protistan parasite that causes diarrheal disease worldwide. Motile trophozoites colonize the small intestine, attaching to the villi with the ventral disc, a unique and complex microtubule (MT) organelle. Attachment to the host epithelium allows Giardia to resist peristalsis during infection of the host gastrointestinal tract. Despite our emerging view of the complexity of ventral disc architecture, we are still in the very preliminary stages of understanding how specific structural elements contribute to disc stability or generate forces for attachment. The ventral disc is a large, dome-shaped, spiral MT array decorated with microribbon-crossbridge protein complexes (MR-CB) that extend upward into the cytoplasm. To find additional disc-associated proteins (DAPs), we used a modified method for disc biochemical fractionation in high salt followed by shotgun proteomic analyses and validation by GFP-tagging. Using this method in conjunction with an ongoing subcellular localization screen, we identified 54 new DAPs. Of the 87 DAPs confirmed to date, 54 localize only to the disc, and the remainder localize to additional structures including the flagella, basal bodies, or median body. Almost one third of the known DAPs lack any homology to proteins in other eukaryotes and another one third simply contain ankyrin repeat domains. Many DAPs localize to specific structural regions of the disc, including the ventral groove region and disc margin. Lastly, we show that spiral singlet MT array comprising the disc is hyperstable and lacks dynamic instability, and we attribute these unique properties to the presence of both novel DAPs as well conserved MAPs and MIPs that are known to stabilize ciliary doublet and triplet MTs.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2018

Robust and stable transcriptional repression in Giardia using CRISPRi

Giardia lamblia is a binucleate protistan parasite causing significant diarrheal disease worldwide. An inability to target Cas9 to both nuclei, combined with the lack of non-homologous end joining and markers for positive selection, has stalled the adaptation of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genetic tools for this widespread parasite. CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) is a modification of the CRISPR/Cas9 system that directs catalytically inactive Cas9 (dCas9) to target loci for stable transcriptional repression. Using a Giardia nuclear localization signal to target dCas9 to both nuclei, we developed efficient and stable CRISPRi-mediated transcriptional repression of exogenous and endogenous genes in Giardia. Specifically, CRISPRi knockdown of kinesin-2a and kinesin-13 causes severe flagellar length defects that mirror defects with morpholino knockdown. Knockdown of the ventral disc MBP protein also causes severe structural defects that are highly prevalent and persist in the population more than five days longer than transient morpholino-based knockdown. By expressing two gRNAs in tandem to simultaneously knock down kinesin-13 and MBP, we created a stable dual knockdown strain with both flagellar length and disc defects. The efficiency and simplicity of CRISPRi in polyploid Giardia allows for rapid evaluation of knockdown phenotypes and highlights the utility of CRISPRi for emerging model systems.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2018

Repeat-driven generation of antigenic diversity in a major human pathogen, Trypanosoma cruzi

Trypanosoma cruzi, a zoonotic kinetoplastid protozoan with a complex genome, is the causative agent of American trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease). The parasite uses a highly diverse repertoire of surface molecules, with roles in cell invasion, immune evasion and pathogenesis. Thus far, the genomic regions containing these genes have been impossible to resolve and it has been impossible to study the structure and function of the several thousand repetitive genes encoding the surface molecules of the parasite. We here present an improved genome assembly of a T. cruzi clade I (TcI) strain using high coverage PacBio single molecule sequencing, together with Illumina sequencing of 34 T. cruzi TcI isolates and clones from different geographic locations, sample sources and clinical outcomes. Resolution of the surface molecule gene structure reveals an unusual duality in the organisation of the parasite genome, a core genomic region syntenous with related protozoa flanked by unique and highly plastic subtelomeric regions encoding surface antigens. The presence of abundant interspersed retrotransposons in the subtelomeres suggests that these elements are involved in a recombination mechanism for the generation of antigenic variation and evasion of the host immune response. The comparative genomic analysis of the cohort of TcI strains revealed multiple cases of such recombination events involving surface molecule genes and has provided new insights into T. cruzi population structure.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2017

Impact of global change on future Ebola emergence and epidemic potential in Africa

Animal-borne or zoonotic human diseases (e.g., SARS, Rabies) represent major health and economic burdens throughout the world, disproportionately impacting poor communities. In 2013-2016, an outbreak of the Ebola virus disease (EVD), a zoonotic disease spread from animal reservoirs caused by the Zaire Ebola virus (EBOV), infected approximately 30,000 people, causing considerable negative social and economic impacts in an unexpected geographical location(Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia). It is not known whether the spatial distribution of this outbreak and unprecedented severity was precipitated by environmental changes and, if so, which areas might be at risk in the future. To better address the major health and economic impacts of zoonotic diseases we develop a system-dynamics approach to capture the impact of future climate, land use and human population change on Ebola (EVD). We create future risk maps for affected areas and predict between a 1.75-3.2 fold increase in EVD outbreaks per year by 2070. While the best case future scenarios we test saw a reduction in the likelihood of epidemics, other future scenarios with high human population growth and low rates of socioeconomic development saw a fourfold increase in the risk of epidemics occurring and almost 50% increase in the risk of catastrophic epidemics. As well as helping to target where health infrastructure might be further developed or vaccines best deployed, our modelling framework can be used to target global interventions and forecast risk for many other zoonotic diseases.\n\nSignificance StatementDespite the severe health and economic impacts of outbreaks of diseases like SARS or Zika, there has been surprisingly little progress in predicting where and when human infectious disease outbreaks will occur next. By modelling the impacts of future climate, land use and human population change on one particular disease Ebola, we develop future risk maps for the affected areas and predict 1.7-3.2 times as many human Ebola outbreaks per year by 2070, and a 50% increase in the chance that these outbreaks will become epidemics. As well as helping to target where health infrastructure might be further developed or vaccines deployed, our approach can also be used to target actions and predict risk hotspots for many other infectious diseases.

epidemiology↗