About me

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I am Hiroaki Murayama, working on mathematical modelling of infectious disease dynamics and control. I am also a medical student in School of Medicine, International University of Health and Welfare in Japan.

My e-mail adress: hiromura319[at]gmail.com


Interests

Infectious Disease Epidemiology

  • Quantification of transmission dynamics and control
  • Theoretical framework construction
  • Network modelling
  • Bayesian Inference
  • COVID-19
  • Mpox (monkeypox)

My research work revolves around mathematical formulation of infectious disease dynamics drawing upon state-of-the-art mathematical/statistical/computational methodologies to better understand the dynamics of infectious diseases across various scales and contribute to public health issues. For directly transmitted diseases, each of observed cases is not independent (infector-infectee relationship), which is often referred to as dependent happenings. This leads to the need for the reconstruction of transmission dynamics in terms of mathematical modelling accounting for non-i.i.d. settings.
My main interest lies in quantifying natural history, transmission dynamics, and control (i.e.,non-pharmaceutical interventions, vaccine strategy, etc.) and constructing a theoretical framework, often using a Bayesian approach.


Brief CV



  • Research Assistant, Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo, Japan, 2022 - 2023
  • Research Assistant, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Chiba University, Japan, 2021 - 2022
  • Advisor, COVID-19 Intervention Group, Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, Japan, 2020 - (present)
  • Medical Student, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, International University of Health and Welfare, Japan, 2019 - (present)

    • Recent activity

    • 4.Aug.2023. Updated this website.
    • 4.Aug.2023. Had a research meeting in Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University (other attendees:Akira Endo, Alexis Robert, Sung-mok Jung, Fuminari Miura, Arata Hidano, Toshiaki Asakura).
    • 31.Jul.2023. Involved in the short course of "Introduction to infectious disease epidemiology and modelling" in School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University, Japan as a teaching assistant (24/07-31/07).
    • 17.Jun.2023. Our paper on mpox spread is accepted in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. :
    • 9.May.2023. Participated in research consortium meeting, Brussels, 6-9 May 2023 (other attendees: Akira Endo, Sung-mok Jung, Fuminari Miura, Miina Yanagihara, Toshiaki Asakura).
    • 25.Apr.2023. I was featured in a Japanese magazine titled "Japanese Scientists in Science 2022".
    • 16.Nov.2022 New paper (preprint) is out in medRxiv. I led this study as a first author:
      • This is a follow-up study of our earlier work on monkeypox epidemiology (Endo et al. 2022. Science) that looks at why cases are now declining in may affected areas. In a nutshelll, we suggested that accumulation of infection-derived immunity in heavy-tailed sexual contact networks can explain a apparent slowdown in growth of cases.
    • 24.Sep.2022. Listed as one of Contributors to UKHSA-JUNIPER MPX Network Modelling Seminar where my leading research and its findings were introduced:
    • 22.Sep.2022. Second-authoring paper is now out in Science as first release:
      • We suggested that the rapid growth of the current monkeypox outbreak is likely driven by a small fraction of men who have sex with men with many sexual partners.
    • 10.Sep.2022. It was an honour to be invited to COVID-19 pandemic conference at Nagoya and give a presentation entitled 'Impacts of vaccine, healthcare burden, and temperature on the transmissibility or virulence of COVID-19'.
    • 06.Sep.2022 My ongoing research project and results were introduced at UKHSA-JUNIPER MPX Network Modelling Seminar.
    • 24.Aug.2022 Our accepted manuscript in EID journal (early release) is now published in Volume 28, Number 9—September 2022:

    Publications

    Article (†: equal contribution)

  • Murayama H, Pearson CAB, Abbott S, Miura F, Jung S, Fearon E, Funk S, Endo A. Accumulation of immunity in heavy-tailed sexual contact networks shapes mpox outbreak sizes. The Journal of Infectious Diseases. 2023 Jul 4;jiad254.

  • Endo A, Murayama H, Abbott S, Ratnayake R, Pearson CAB, Edmunds WJ, Fearon E†, Funk S†. Heavy-tailed sexual contact networks and monkeypox epidemiology in the global outbreak, 2022. Science. 2022 Sep 25;0(0):eadd4507.

  • Ko KY, Murayama H, Yamasaki L, Kinoshita R, Suzuki M, Nishiura H. Age-Dependent Effects of COVID-19 Vaccine and of Healthcare Burden on COVID-19 Deaths, Tokyo, Japan. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2022;28(9).

  • Murayama H†, Yamasaki L†, Hashizume M. The impact of temperature on the transmissibility and virulence of COVID-19 in Tokyo, Japan. Scientific Reports. 2021;11(1):24477.

  • Murayama H, Kayano T, Nishiura H. Estimating COVID-19 cases infected with the variant alpha (VOC 202012/01): an analysis of screening data in Tokyo, January-March 2021. Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling. 2021;18(1):13.

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