Conquering Epidemics

We can never stop fighting

Humans and pathogens are locked in a bitter arms race—and the pathogens are winning. They are evolving to resist our best medicines, and humanity’s pipeline of effective antibiotic weapons is empty. Meanwhile, in a world of packed cities, constant travel, and a warming planet, the danger of a massive outbreak is more acute than ever.

We’re fighting on many fronts to make sure humanity is ready when the next big outbreak happens. Whether it’s a virulent new virus or a persistent killer like AIDS, TB, or Malaria, we’re determined to outsmart our infectious disease foes. We’re mining mountains of data to reveal clues about how these diseases spread. We’re cracking the pathogens’ biological codes. And we’re helping teams around the world build better systems for surveillance and response.

We’re stopping patient 0 from leading to patient 6.7 billion.

Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics
The Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics (CCDD) has been a key center for research and policy analysis on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and has been at the forefront of the COVID-19 response.
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Recent Stories

Science unclear around fourth COVID-19 shot

Several countries have authorized second booster shots of COVID-19 vaccine, but concerns have recently been raised about whether this is a useful approach.

The latest on the coronavirus

Harvard Chan School experts offer comments and context about the coronavirus in a variety of media outlets.

What will Omicron’s decline look like? Hard to say.

Although Omicron appears to have peaked in several urban centers on the East Coast, experts aren’t sure what the coronavirus variant’s downward path will look like across the U.S.

Pandemic shining a light on need for better postpartum mental health care

The number of people suffering from mental health conditions has skyrocketed during the pandemic, but evidence suggests that pregnant and recently pregnant people have been hit particularly hard.

An effort to ‘supercharge’ disease forecasting

A new federal center aims to help the nation better forecast future waves of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as outbreaks of other diseases.

Caroline Buckee
Associate Professor of Epidemiology

"One of the key things you want to know about an infectious disease is where is it spreading, how quickly, to which populations? Traditionally, we’ve had very few sources of data about how people move around. But today, everyone has a mobile phone."
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Yonatan Grad
Melvin J. and Geraldine L. Glimcher Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases

"In the future, our understanding of the diversity of pathogen species, and the interaction between host and pathogen, will improve."
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Jessica Cohen
Bruce A. Beal, Robert L. Beal, and Alexander S. Beal Associate Professor of Global Health

"Over the next 30 to 50 years, a game changer would be a highly effective malaria vaccine... Meanwhile, lots of kids with malaria are misdiagnosed or undertreated. A vaccine would allow us to circumvent these many behavioral barriers."
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Jeff Wagner
Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases

"In the near future, we’re going to see rapid diagnostic tests: for example, a simple and cheap readout that says whether a person has Zika or dengue—two viruses with similar symptoms."
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