Summary
My research involves emerging infectious diseases and focuses on the development of mathematical models to characterise their epidemiology and to evaluate control strategies.
I currently hold a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship funded by Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society to better understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of arboviruses and assess the potential impact of vaccination and Wolbachia, a novel vector control strategy, on dengue transmission and disease.
My research focuses on developing models to integrate data streams from multiple sources and modelling the population-level impact of interventions, as well as better understanding the within-host dynamics of dengue virus and the complex interactions between the serotype-specific antibody responses following natural infection and vaccination. In collaboration with Sanofi-Pasteur, we discovered the fundamental role that pre-exposure to dengue before vaccination has on the vaccine immunogenicity, efficacy and thus on the long-term benefits and risks of CYD-TDV, the Sanofi-Pasteur dengue vaccine.
I am also interested in developing methods and tools to analyse epidemic data from novel emerging infections in real-time. As part of the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, I have contributed to the joint efforts to characterising SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility, severity and the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions. In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Padua (Italy), we found that up to 40% of SARS-CoV-2 infections can be asymptomatic and potentially capable of transmitting the infection but that the timely implementation of interventions can suppress COVID-19. As a member of the WHO Ebola Response Team, I have contributed to the epidemiological characterisation of the Ebola virus affecting West Africa in 2013-2015, which has informed situation awareness and response planning at the WHO. I have also contributed to the characterisation of Zika virus epidemiology and public health implications and developed new methods to assess the risk of international disease introduction during an outbreak.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Lavezzo E, Franchin E, Ciavarella C, et al., 2020, Suppression of a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the Italian municipality of Vo', Nature, Vol:584, ISSN:0028-0836, Pages:425-429
Dorigatti I, Donnelly C, Laydon D, et al., 2018, Refined efficacy estimates of the Sanofi Pasteur dengue vaccine CYD-TDV using machine learning, Nature Communications, Vol:9, ISSN:2041-1723
Dorigatti I, McCormack C, Nedjati-Gilani G, et al., 2017, Using Wolbachia for Dengue Control: Insights from Modelling., Trends in Parasitology, Vol:34, ISSN:1471-5007, Pages:102-113
Dorigatti I, Hamlet A, Aguas R, et al., 2017, International risk of yellow fever spread from the ongoing outbreak in Brazil, December 2016 to May 2017, Eurosurveillance, Vol:22, ISSN:1560-7917, Pages:1-4
Ferguson NM, Rodriguez-Barraquer I, Dorigatti I, et al., 2016, Benefits and risks of the Sanofi-Pasteur dengue vaccine: Modeling optimal deployment, Science, Vol:353, ISSN:0036-8075, Pages:1033-1036
Ferguson NM, Cucunubá ZM, Dorigatti I, et al., 2016, Countering the Zika epidemic in Latin America, Science, Vol:353, ISSN:1095-9203, Pages:353-354
Agua-Agum J, Ariyarajah A, Blake IM, et al., 2015, Ebola virus disease among children in West Africa, New England Journal of Medicine, Vol:372, ISSN:1533-4406, Pages:1274-1277
Dorigatti I, Cauchemez S, Ferguson NM, 2013, Increased transmissibility explains the third wave of infection by the 2009 H1N1 pandemic virus in England, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol:110, ISSN:0027-8424, Pages:13422-13427