Matt Keeling

FindAPhD : PhD in Mathematical Epidemiology, Public Health or Behavioural Science (Pandemic Planning) at University of Warwick Apply for a PhD: PhD in Mathematical Epidemiology, Public Health or Behavioural Science (Pandemic Planning) at University of Warwick

IGPP (Institute for Global Pandemic Planning) Warwick is now advertising for fully-funded PhD students. Happy to chat to anyone that is interested. eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

What bird flu experts are watching for in 2025 Since early 2024, the U.S. has logged 66 human cases of H5N1. Scientists are keeping a watchful eye on the virus’s spread as we enter a new year.

Good update on the bird flu situation

ttps://www.sciencenews.org/article/bird-flu-avian-flu-h5n1-virus

Minimal presynaptic protein machinery governing diverse kinetics of calcium-evoked neurotransmitter release - Nature Communications The efficiency and kinetics of neurotransmitter release are tightly regulated by calcium. Here, the authors explore how Synaptotagmin isoforms 1 and 7 work together to regulate this process, enabling ...

Fantastic paper by SBIDER member Yulia Timofeeva - showing that diversity in neurotransmitter response is governed by just a few key proteins. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

COVID 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting Five years after SARS-CoV-2 surfaced, scientists reflect and look ahead to the next threat

I found this article an excellent summary of the current situation with pandemic-planning. Many have forgotten how bad COVID-19 was and how much worst a future pandemic could be. There seems to be a collected desire to pretend the SARS-2-CoV pandemic never happened. www.science.org/content/arti...

Massive congratulations to Rosemary Collier, Gavin Perkins and Siobhan Quenby (all at Warwick University) for their well-deserved awards in the 2025 New Year’s Honours list.

Instead of listing my publications, as the year draws to an end, I want to shine the spotlight on the commonplace assumption that productivity must always increase. Good research is disruptive and thinking time is central to high quality scholarship and necessary for disruptive research.

Yet more proof of how carefully vaccines are scrutinised and regulated, unfortunately I expect it will be used to support the anti-vaccine propaganda.

Whooping cough cases skyrocket in Michigan, as vaccinations decline | Bridge Michigan A potentially deadly disease in infants, whooping cough — pertussis — has exploded in Michigan this year, in part because of decreased vaccination rates.

Vaccine exemptions in Michigan have nearly doubled since 2020, increasing from 3.2% to 6.2% in 2023.

Cases of whooping cough in Michigan are currently higher than they’ve been for 20 years.

This is what happens when vaccine misinformation flourishes.

www.bridgemi.com/michigan-hea...

Brilliant news!! Well deserved, many congratulations. 🎉🎉

Aperiodic Optimal Chronotherapy in Simple Compartment Tumour Growth Models Under Circadian Drug Toxicity Conditions Cancer cells typically divide with weaker synchronisation with the circadian clock than normal cells, with the degree of decoupling increasing with tumour maturity. Chronotherapy exploits this loss of...

Two new papers from the SBIDER group:
Bryon & Nigel, on tumour growth and circadian rhythms: www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/12...
James & the team at KEMRI, on the spatial distribution on rhinovirus in Kenya: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A single mutation in bovine influenza H5N1 hemagglutinin switches specificity to human receptors In 2024, several human infections with highly pathogenic clade 2.3.4.4b bovine influenza H5N1 viruses in the United States raised concerns about their capability for bovine-to-human or even human-to-h...

Probably the scariest thing I've read recently: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The one reassurance is that "The bovine airway and mammary gland epithelium have predominantly avian-type receptors", so there should not be strong evolutionary pressures while H5N1 is in cattle.

We have 4 post-doctoral positions, working with linked data to improve public health and health services with www.liverpool.ac.uk/population-h... and www.liverpool.ac.uk/civic-health... #episky #econsky #AcademicSky @profbuchan.bsky.social

Truly brilliant news, and a fantastic example of vaccination in action.

It's even more annoying when you get a desk-rejection in two days. 😱

I still can't work out why it seems to take weeks to go from a pre-print to the submitted version. Surely there's a better way. (Although I'm certainly not the first to say this).

JCVI statement on COVID-19 vaccination in 2025 and spring 2026

Really pleased to have finally submitted the work on Cost-Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines to a journal.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
This work helped to underpin the JCVI decision on vaccination for 2025.
www.gov.uk/government/p...

Hi All. Inspired by the brilliant day at the Isaac Newton Institute on Thursday (21st Nov) about communicating mathematics - I'm going to force myself to post something at least every week.