# Integrating data streams with multi-scale modeling to guide norovirus vaccine decision-making

> **NIH NIH R01** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $340,312

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Noroviruses cause over 20 million diarrhea cases annually in the United States, one-fifth of all diarrhea cases
globally, and over 200,000 deaths worldwide. Norovirus vaccines are currently in development. Our goal is to
develop a comprehensive detailed, user-friendly norovirus transmission and vaccination simulator that will help
guide and inform norovirus vaccine design and implementation.
To achieve this goal, a number of specific insights and parameter estimates are required, such as: At what rate
does immunity to norovirus wane in individuals? How does prior infection (or vaccination) affect the course of
illness and the duration/quantity of viral shedding? What is the degree of cross-protecting immunity at the
genogroup, genotype and strain-level? With such results in hand, we can answer the following vaccine strategy
questions: What frequency of re-vaccination is required for control? How often will a norovirus vaccine need to
be updated to keep up with viral evolution? What are the population-level health impacts of age-targeted (or
other) vaccination strategies?
To answer these questions, we will integrate detailed data from multiple sources including volunteer infection
studies, national surveillance, and viral sequence datasets. We will fit mathematical and statistical models to
these datasets to answer the questions posed above. Our analyses will provide a thorough understanding of
the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of the virus. This information will be used to develop and
implement a detailed norovirus transmission and vaccination simulator. This simulator will be packaged as a
user-friendly application for vaccine designers and policy implementers to analyze and forecast possible
impacts of vaccine formulations and distribution strategies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9932411
- **Project number:** 5R01GM124280-03
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Benjamin A Lopman
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $340,312
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-06-01 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9932411

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9932411, Integrating data streams with multi-scale modeling to guide norovirus vaccine decision-making (5R01GM124280-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9932411. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*