Zeeman Institute » News

A new objective for optimising cancer therapy - The expected lifetime payoff

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 12:47:00 GMT

A new objective for the optimisation of cancer chemotherapy was developed by the Burroughs lab in Tzamarias et al, 2025. They used ideas in branching processes to develop the life-expectancy payoff that averages over outcomes, such as cure and death. It is an interpretable, and in principle parametrisable payoff. Tzamarias, who just submitted his PhD thesis, will continue this work being awarded a 6 month EPSRC postdoctoral pathways fellowship.

Pregnancy journey predictive model published

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 12:46:00 GMT

The mathematical model underlying Tommy’s national miscarriage support tool was published in Lancet Regional, Koki et al 2025. The paper developed 2 predictive model, that for miscarriage prediction at next pregnancy, and a time to pregnancy, that included the possibility of a fertility problem. These were combined to model the pregnancy journey.

PNAS paper on Climate Variability and Vector-borne Diseases

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 08:07:17 GMT

It's been a very long process, but work by Robin Thompson (now Oxford), Will Hart (also now Oxford), Alex Kaye, Matt Keeling and collaborators at Fort Collins and UKHSA has finally been published in PNAS: Climate variability amplifies the need for vector-borne disease outbreak preparedness.

We explain that while the average trend of increasing temperatures is going to expand the range of many vector-borne diseases - it is also very important to consider the variability around this trend. Unusually hot summers may lead to vector-borne disease outbreaks in the UK well before predictions based on the average.

Albane & Isty arriving

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 08:27:12 GMT

Our two new members of staff Albane Théry and Isty Rysava are arriving soon.
Albane works on hydrodynamics problems that arise in soft active matter and biological physics, with particular interest in self-organization and complex environments - for example the swimming motion of bacteria. She did her undergraduate in Paris, her Phd in Cambridge and has just completed a personal fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
Isty is a She did her MSc in Glasgow, her PhD in ��TV (with Mike), and has since spent time at CDC (Atlanta) and Oxford (working with Robin Thompson).
We are all looking forward to welcoming them to SBIDER.

Ivy Kombe arrives next week

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 09:51:10 GMT

Ivy Kombe, an Wellcome Trust fellow, arrives in ��TV next week (early August). Ivy will be joining us for around two years. Her fellowship is focused on the vacccine pipeline from trials to deployment. Ivy is also linked to the ViGOR project and will help to strengthen links between ��TV and KEMRI (Kenya). Ivy will be based in Room 5.25 - please pop in and introduce yourself.

🎓 Celebrating Our New SBIDER Graduates

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 14:24:00 GMT

We are thrilled to celebrate the achievements of two outstanding members of the SBIDER community who have recently graduated from the University of WarwicK.

Daniel, Joshua & Robert publish their MSc group project

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 13:41:29 GMT

It is great to see that the MathSys MSc group project by Daniel, Joshua and Robert - led by Ed Hill - has now been published.

This work looks at the very topical question of considering the likelihood that H5N1 can mutate to be human-to-human transmissible.

Higgins, D; Looker, J; Sunnucks, R; Carruthers, J; Finnie, T; Keeling, MJ; Hill, EM (2025) Introducing a framework for within-host dynamics and mutations modelling of H5N1 influenza infection in humans JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE 22

Tom M-J joins university management

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 10:10:54 GMT

It has recently been announced that Tom Montenegro-Johnson will be joining the University's senior leadership team as Pro-Vice-Chanellor for Impact. I'm sure we are going to be hearing a lot about this role in the run-up to REF2029.

Tommys Miscarriage Support tool

Sat, 19 Nov 2022 14:20:18 GMT

Tommys charity launched the Miscarriage Support tool that uses a miscarriage model developed in the Burroughs group.

Working with Professor Siobhan Quenby, WMS, on her Tommys net longitudinal data set, Nigel Burroughs developed predictive models for miscarriage, fertility and time to pregnancy using
a set of covariates, including previous miscarriage history, age and BMI. This work originally started as a 4th year UG research project, was developed into a validated predictive tool by Constandina Koki, PDRA in the Burroughs group. The support tool aims to give women with a history of miscarriage an estimate for the probability of a successful pregnancy, and thus alleviate some of the worries associated with repeated pregnancy loss (RPL). Work continues and a publication will hopefully follow shortly.

Weldon Prize for SPI-M-O and Zeeman modellers

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 17:25:39 GMT

Matt Keeling and Louise Dyson were part of the ��TV Zeeman team invited to attend the Weldon Prize giving in Oxford.

This prize is awarded annually for ‘noteworthy contributions to the development of mathematical or statistical methods applied to problems in Biology’. This year it was given to the SPI-M-O group (part of SAGE) in recognition for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The awards committee said "Under great pressure to deliver results quickly, and under immense public scrutiny, SPI-M-O both built on existing science and developed new epidemiological and statistical techniques to understand the spread of the virus and how it might be controlled. The importance of good and timely disease modelling for policymakers has never been as clear."