Abstract

Derek Smith is Professor of Infectious Disease Informatics at Cambridge University in the UK, and is also Director of the Centre for Pathogen Evolution, and Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Modelling, Evolution, and Control of Emerging Infectious Diseases (both positions also at Cambridge University).

He is also a member of the Viroscience Department at Erasmus Medical Center in The Netherlands. He is a member of the WHO influenza vaccine strain selection committee, and is also involved in vaccine strain selection for other human and non-human pathogens for the FAO and OIE . His research is focused on how pathogens evolve, to what extent this evolution is predictable, and determining public and animal health measures against such ever-changing pathogens. He received a United States National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award in 2005 for his work on Antigenic Cartography, a method that enables detailed study of pathogen evolution.