A Washington State University mathematician is using computational modeling to decipher how viral infections spread across multiple scales, from processes inside individual cells to outbreaks across populations.
Xueying “Snow” Wang, a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, is the WSU-based investigator on a three-year National Science Foundation-funded project involving researchers from WSU, the University of Florida, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The team is developing mathematical models that connect the biological and epidemiological scales of viral infection.
“I am an applied mathematician, so I’m particularly interested in how math can serve as a tool when collaborating with people in different disciplines,” said Wang.
Wang has studied infectious diseases through the lens of mathematical biology for more than 15 years. Her research focuses on how mathematics can help researchers connect insights from across fields that study diseases at various biological scales.
“When we think about a disease outbreak, we usually think of sickness spreading from person to person, or across a city or state,” said Wang. “But disease transmission actually begins at a much smaller scale, at the cellular and immune system levels. Our goal is to connect those different scales mathematically, from cell to patient to population.”
Viral infections develop and spread via interconnected processes which occur at several scales. Typically, researchers examine what occurs when a virus infects a cell, how an individual’s immune system responds, or how infections move through a population. These processes are often studied separately within different scientific disciplines, making it difficult to understand how changes at one scale influence outcomes at another.
“Molecular biology tells us what happens inside the cell. Immunology tells us how the body reacts and responds to infection. Epidemiology tells us what occurs across the population. Each discipline has its own way to study this issue,” said Wang. “What’s cool is that math is the bridge that connects these different pieces across disciplines.”
By integrating data from multiple fields into a common mathematical framework, Wang and her collaborators hope to better understand how viruses replicate, how the body responds to infection, how prevention measures and treatments affect infections, and how those infections spread through populations.
The resulting framework could also help researchers examine how changes or interventions at one scale affect outcomes at another, ultimately providing useful insights for managing future viral outbreaks.
Visit the WSU Department of Mathematics and Statistics website to learn more about active research in the department.
