
Dr. Michael Mina
Michael Mina, MD, PhD, has recently made seminal contributions to understanding the epidemiology of COVID-19 and in the diagnostic testing regime for Sars-Cov2. His longstanding research program centers on mathematical models and technical innovations to develop ways to better understand the population and immunological consequences and patterns underlying infectious diseases. His lab has contributed to areas as diverse as extremely high throughput serological surveillance of pathogens to examining the unintended/heterologous effects of vaccines to alter transmission patterns of unrelated pathogens using statistical and dynamical models—work he advanced as a post-doc in our colleague Bryan Grenfell’s lab. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, Michael has been an important voice in developing a rationally based national testing program. His work in very rapid, inexpensive antigen based testing for Cov2 has been widely discussed in the press (see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/opinion/coronavirus-tests.html) but Michael is also playing an essential role in developing a national strategy for COVID serological surveillance and in providing guidance in optimizing the standard qPCR assay. He has already contributed to more than 15 publications on various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we at Princeton are grateful for his advice as we developed our Sars-Cov2 testing lab.