Department of Veterinary Medicine

Cambridge Veterinary School

Research in Veterinary Medicine

James Wood

Position(s): Alborada Professor of Equine and Farm Animal Science

Director, Cambridge Infectious Diseases Consortium

Email: jlnw2@cam.ac.uk

Tel.: +44 (0)1223 764666

Other relevant links

Research description

My research interests centre on the dynamics processes found at the heart of every infectious disease, at scales from the cellular and sub-cellular through to the more traditionally studied epidemiological scales of the population and metapopulation. Wherever appropriate, mathematical modelling and more traditional epidemiological approaches are combined with detailed molecular studies of pathogen and host in a multidisciplinary framework. All studies of any infection must also consider the ecology of the host as well as of the infection itself and its pathogenesis.

I have particular interests in the epidemiological dynamics of various virus infections of humans and other animals, including influenza, African horse sickness and emergent lyssavirus and henipavirus infections and the methods needed to study them. Bovine Tuberculosis poses interesting challenges at the interface of science and policy and is an important disease and challenge. Funded studies include the transmission dynamics of mammalian influenza viruses and their variants through natural hosts, orbivirus dynamics and bovine tuberculosis control. I co-supervise several students working on the dynamics of emergent viral infections in bats, in particular Eidolon helvum, in Ghana.

Main collaborators

  • Dr Julia Gog, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge
  • Prof Andrew Cunningham, Institute of Zoology
  • Prof Colleen Webb, Colorado State University
  • Profs Ian Brown and Prof Tony Fooks, Veterinary Laboratories Agency
  • Dr Richard Suu-Ire, Ghana Department of Wildlife and Veterinary Sevices
  • Dr Pablo Murcia, MRC - University of Glasgow, Centre for Virus Research
  • Prof Bryan Grenfell, Princetown University
  • Profs Paul Kellam, Gordon Dugan and Julian Parkhill, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
  • Dr Richard Newton, Animal Health Trust
  • Dr Simon Gubbins, Institute for Animal Health

Key recent publications

  • Hayman D. T., Wang L. F., Barr J., Baker K. S., Suu-Ire R., Broder C. C., Cunningham A. A. and Wood J. L. 2011. Antibodies to henipavirus or henipa-like viruses in domestic pigs in ghana, west Africa. PLoS One, 6: e25256. [PubMed].
  • Lloyd L. E., Jonczyk M., Jervis C. M., Flack D. J., Lyall J., Foote A., Mumford J. A., Brown I. H., Wood J. L. and Elton D. M. 2011. Experimental transmission of avian-like swine H1N1 influenza virus between immunologically naive and vaccinated pigs. Influenza Other Respi Viruses, 5: 357-64. [PubMed].
  • Karolemeas K., TJ M. C. K., Clifton-Hadley R. S., Goodchild A. V., Mitchell A., Johnston W. T., Conlan A. J., Donnelly C. A. and Wood J. L. 2011. Recurrence of bovine tuberculosis breakdowns in Great Britain: Risk factors and prediction. Prev Vet Med, 102: 22-9. [PubMed].
  • McKinley T. J., Murcia P. R., Gog J. R., Varela M. and Wood J. L. 2011. A Bayesian approach to analyse genetic variation within RNA viral populations. PLoS Comput Biol, 7: e1002027. [PubMed].
  • Mutreja A, Kim DW, Thomson NR, Connor TR, Lee JH, Kariuki S, Croucher NJ, Choi SY, Harris SR, Lebens M, Niyogi SK, Kim EJ, Ramamurthy T, Chun J, Wood JL, Clemens JD, Czerkinsky C, Nair GB, Holmgren J, Parkhill J, Dougan G. (2011). "Evidence for several waves of global transmission in the seventh cholera pandemic." Nature 477(7365):462-5. [PubMed]
  • Hayman D. T., Emmerich P., Yu M., Wang L. F., Suu-Ire R., Fooks A. R., Cunningham A. A. and Wood J. L. 2010. Long-term survival of an urban fruit bat seropositive for Ebola and Lagos bat viruses. PLoS One, 5: e11978. [PubMed].
  • Murcia P. R., Baillie G. J., Daly J., Elton D., Jervis C., Mumford J. A., Newton R., Parrish C. R., Hoelzer K., Dougan G., Parkhill J., Lennard N., Ormond D., Moule S., Whitwham A., McCauley J. W., McKinley T. J., Holmes E. C., Grenfell B. T. and Wood J. L. 2010. Intra- and interhost evolutionary dynamics of equine influenza virus. J Virol, 84: 6943-54. [PubMed].
  • Park, A. W., J. M. Daly, N. S. Lewis, D. J. Smith, J. L. Wood and B. T. Grenfell (2009). "Quantifying the impact of immune escape on transmission dynamics of influenza." Science 326(5953): 726-728. [PubMed]
  • Nunes, S. F., P. R. Murcia, L. S. Tiley, I. H. Brown, A. W. Tucker, D. J. Maskell and J. L. Wood "An ex vivo swine tracheal organ culture for the study of influenza infection." Influenza Other Respi Viruses 4(1): 7-15. [PubMed]
  • Saenz, R. A., M. Quinlivan, D. Elton, S. Macrae, A. S. Blunden, J. A. Mumford, J. M. Daly, P. Digard, A. Cullinane, B. T. Grenfell, J. W. McCauley, J. L. Wood and J. R. Gog "Dynamics of Infection and Pathology in Influenza." J Virol. [PubMed]
  • Baguelin, M., J. R. Newton, N. Demiris, J. Daly, J. A. Mumford and J. L. Wood (2009). "Control of equine influenza: scenario testing using a realistic metapopulation model of spread." J R Soc Interface. 7: 67-79. [PubMed]
  • Grenfell, B.T., Pybus, O.G., Gog, J.R., Wood, J.L.N., Daly, J.M. Mumford, J.A. & Holmes, E.C. (2004) Unifying the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of pathogens. Science 303, 327-332 [PubMed]