The world has never been at greater risk of new infectious disease pandemics. Global surveillance for emerging zoonotic viruses is inadequate to protect against this risk, especially in low-income populations that are at the highest risk. Wastewater surveillance potentially offers a scalable surveillance tool for the detection of spillover infection and human transmission of viral families of concern. We are funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish the Wastewater Surveillance for Pandemic Prevention (WaSPP) network. This network will develop and pilot wastewater surveillance strategies, laboratory methods and analytical tools in Africa and Asia. Our protocols and software will be available to the community to allow wider testing and sustained implementation.

A critical part of the WaSPP research agenda will be the development of math models and analytical tools to determine the target product profile for wastewater surveillance (WS) for each viral family considered at high risk of causing the next pandemic, to model the public health value of WS and to support the analysis of epidemiologic and genomic data from WaSPP pilots in Africa and Asia. This will include the design of optimal WS sampling strategies and comparison of its potential sensitivity with clinical surveillance.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a three-year project and would suit a biologist, mathematician or statistician with research experience in infectious disease epidemiology and the ambition to advance global public health. In the first year, the successful candidate will develop mathematical models of spillover infection and transmission of prototype viruses representing viral families concern to support the development of target product profiles for WS. They will also help develop candidate virus panels and design WS characteristics for testing in WaSPP network countries based on risk maps for each viral family. They will subsequently support the analysis of WS data following pilot implementation, including refinement of mathematical models and the development of appropriate analytical pipelines and tools.

The post offers substantial opportunities for publication of high impact research and engagement with centres of excellence in the UK and in countries at high risk of pandemic virus emergence. The successful applicant will work in the Vaccine Epidemiology Research Group (VERG) within the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis. VERG consists of epidemiologists and laboratory scientists working on the epidemiology and immunology of viral and bacterial pathogens, with a particular interest in vaccines and genomics. We are a highly collaborative group with an international reputation.