Projects

The following projects are the current main areas of research of our group. Side-projects are not listed. For projects and products not directly related to research, such as software, online courses, presentations, and other materials, please see Dr. Handel’s personal website.

Designing better influenza vaccines

We are using modeling and analysis approaches to determine how to optimize vaccine formulation, with a focus on the impact of dose for future universal influenza vaccines. The work is part of the Center for Influenza Vaccine Research for High-Risk Populations (CIVR-HRP), which is a component of NIH’s Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs) program.

Model-guided vaccines for norovirus

We are working on better understanding aspects of norovirus within-host and epidemiological dynamics and potential control. We analyze and model data that can inform the development and deployment of future norovirus vaccines. This is part of an NIH funded project with collaborators Ben Lopman, Katia Koelle and Juan Leon at Emory, as well as colleagues from other universities, the CDC and Takeda.

Modeling and analysis of influenza immune responses

We want to understand what mechanisms lead to good induction of memory immune responses following vaccination, and what mechanisms influence the severity of infections. To that end, we combine statistical and mechanistic models with data. We work on several projects in this area, some are part of the the Center for Influenza Vaccine Research for High-Risk Populations (CIVR-HRP), others are part of the Center for Influenza Disease and Emergence Research (CIDER), a component of NIH’s Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (CEIRR), and some are part of the project Dynamics and Evolution of Immune Responses to Influenza Viruses with colleague Rustom Antia as PI and other collaborators.

Scientific software development

We have been creating several R software packages to help with both research and teaching in the area of infectious disease modeling. To learn more about these projects, check out this page on Andreas Handel’s website.