biology

Institute for Disease Modeling

Institute for Disease Modeling is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Institute for Disease Modeling rather than just read about it. In short: Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM) is an institute within the Global Health Division of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Established in 2008 as part of the Global Good Fund, a non-profit subsidiary of Intellectual Ventures (IV) funded by Bill and Melinda Gates, IDM has transitioned in mid-2020 to the Gates Foundation.

Key takeaways

Institute for Disease Modeling belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Institute for Disease Modeling to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Institute for Disease Modeling from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM) is an institute within the Global Health Division of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Established in 2008 as part of the Global Good Fund, a non-profit subsidiary of Intellectual Ventures (IV) funded by Bill and Melinda Gates, IDM has transitioned in mid-2020 to the Gates Foundation. IDM specializes in mathematical modelling of infectious disease and other quantitative global health research. Its models include malaria, polio, measles, COVID-19 and HIV (with EMOD). IDM releases source code of their stable models to the public. While at IV, the institute was located in Bellevue, Washington. After the outbreak of COVID-19 in Washington State, IDM has transitioned to all-remote work with no physical offices. It will eventually relocate to the Gates Foundation's main office in Seattle.

Disease modeling software EMOD is the group's individual-based disease modeling software (not a compartmental model) initially coded c. 2005. It has been released to the public as open-source software. The software can model malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, measles, dengue, polio and typhoid. In 2020, IDM developed a designated COVID-19 agent-based model named "Covasim." It was used initially to advise on decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic in Oregon and in Washington State, gaining national attention. Covasim, coded in Python, is open-source and has been used by independent researchers around the world.

References

Sources Jeffrey W Eaton; Nicolas Bacaër; Anna Bershteyn; Valentina Cambiano; Anne Cori; Rob E Dorrington; et al. (October 2015), "Assessment of epidemic projections using recent HIV survey data in South Africa: a validation analysis of ten mathematical models of HIV epidemiology in the antiretroviral therapy era", The Lancet, 3 (10): e598–e608, doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(15)00080-7, hdl:10044/1/33879, PMID 26385301 Bershteyn, Anna; Gerardin, Jaline; Bridenbecker, Daniel; Lorton, Christopher W; Bloedow, Jonathan; Baker, Robert S; Chabot-Couture, Guillaume; Chen, Ye; Fischle, Thomas; Frey, Kurt; Gauld, Jillian S; Hu, Hao; Izzo, Amanda S; Klein, Daniel J; Lukacevic, Dejan; McCarthy, Kevin A; Miller, Joel C; Ouedraogo, Andre Lin; Perkins, T Alex; Steinkraus, Jeffrey; ten Bosch, Quirine A; Ting, Hung-Fu; Titova, Svetlana; Wagner, Bradley G; Welkhoff, Philip A; Wenger, Edward A; Wiswell, Christian N (2018), "Implementation and applications of EMOD, an individual-based multi-disease modeling platform", Pathogens and Disease, 76 (5), doi:10.1093/femspd/fty059, ISSN 2049-632X, PMC 6067119, PMID 29986020

External links Official website EMOD on GitHub COVID-19 Chapter 11: Modeling, This Podcast Will Kill You, May 4, 2020, interview with Dr. Mike Famulare from the Institute for Disease Modeling recorded April 29, 2020 starts at 28:30

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Institute for Disease Modeling

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Institute for Disease Modeling claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Institute for Disease Modeling before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Institute for Disease Modeling ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Institute for Disease Modeling

In research: Institute for Disease Modeling appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Institute for Disease Modeling in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Institute for Disease Modeling is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics COVID-19 pandemic stubs, Companies based in Bellevue, Washington, Epidemiology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Institute for Disease Modeling outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Institute for Disease Modeling in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Institute for Disease Modeling means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Institute for Disease Modeling out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Institute for Disease Modeling in simple terms?

Why does Institute for Disease Modeling matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Institute for Disease Modeling?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Institute for Disease Modeling.