This year the Alumni Office will be running their annual alumni event virtually from Monday 7th – Saturday 12th September, Meeting Minds Global 2020, with the opportunity to hear exclusive academic insights into the latest research across a wide range of disciplines.

We are delighted that as part of the week the Alumni Office will be hosting a special Q&A Panel Session with four academics from the Department of Statistics on their COVID-19 statistical work.

Title: Q&A Session: How does statistical research help us understand, control and treat COVID-19?

Abstract: The identification of a previously unidentified pathogen causing serious disease and spreading quickly poses big challenges.  Department of Statistics researchers have been busy since January contributing to the growing evidence base informing policy decisions in the UK and elsewhere around the world.  Ask your questions and get answers directly from the researchers involved. The Panel:

Professor Charlotte Deane Professor of Structural Bioinformatics

Professor Christl Donnelly Professor of Applied Statistics

Professor Chris Holmes Professor of Biostatistics

Professor Garrett Morris Associate Professor of Systems Approaches to Biomedicine

Additional reading recommended for session:

R Verity, LC Okell, I Dorigatti et al. (including CA Donnelly) Estimates of the severity of coronavirus disease 2019: a model-based analysis. Lancet Infectious Diseases; 30-03-2020, published online. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30243-7

S Flaxman, S Mishra, A Gandi et al. (including CA Donnelly) Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe. Nature; 08-06-2020, published online. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2405-7

M Kendall, L Milsom, L Abeler-Dorner et al. (including C Holmes) COVID-19 incidence and R decreased on the Isle of Wight after the launch of the Test, Trace, Isolate programme. MedRxiv; 14-07-2020, published online. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.12.20151753

MIJ Raybould, A Kovaltsuk, C Marks, CM Deane (2020), Bioinformatics CoV-AbDab: the Coronavirus Antibody Database https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa739

JD Galson, S Schaetzle, RJM Bashford-Rogers, MIJ Raybould et al. (including CM Deane), Deep sequencing of B cell receptor repertoires from COVID-19 patients reveals strong convergent immune signatures. BioRxiv; Preprint.  https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.20.106294v1

GM Morris, Coronavirus, 03-03-2020, https://www.blopig.com/blog/2020/03/coronavirus/

L Zhang et al. Crystal structure of SARS-CoV-2 main protease provides a basis for design of improved α-ketoamide inhibitors, Science; 24-04-2020: Vol. 368, Issue 6489, pp. 409-412, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abb3405