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Welcome to Science Sessions, the PNAS podcast program. Listen to brief conversations with cutting-edge researchers, Academy members, and policymakers as they discuss topics relevant to today's scientific community. Learn the behind-the-scenes story of work published in PNAS, plus a broad range of scientific news about discoveries that affect the world around us. Please scroll down for recent podcasts.

Sep 16, 2024

How pathogen stowaways traversed the oceans

Science Sessions are brief conversations with cutting-edge researchers, National Academy members, and policymakers as they discuss topics relevant to today's scientific community. Learn the behind-the-scenes story of work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), plus a broad range of scientific news about discoveries that affect the world around us.

In this episode, Jamie Lloyd-Smith and Elizabeth Blackmore describe how they modeled the epidemiology of pathogens on ocean voyages.

In this episode, we cover:
•[00:00] Introduction
•[01:04] Integrative scientist Jamie Lloyd-Smith and disease ecologist Elizabeth Blackmore describe how they came to study the epidemiology of ocean travel.
•[03:21] Blackmore and Lloyd-Smith explain why they focused on three pathogens: influenza, measles, and smallpox.
•[04:13] Lloyd-Smith explains the results of the disease model, with pathogen biology, passenger number, and journey length factoring into the duration of shipboard outbreaks.
•[05:05] Blackmore details the additional insights provided by newspaper records of ship arrivals in 1850s San Francisco.
•[06:57] Lloyd-Smith and Blackmore talk about the caveats and limitations of the study.
•[08:02] Blackmore and Lloyd-Smith explore potential next steps.
•[09:47] Conclusion.

About Our Guests:

Jamie Lloyd-Smith
Professor
University of California, Los Angeles

Elizabeth Blackmore
Doctoral student
Yale University

View related content here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2400425121

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