Damn, neither had I. Modeling TB transmission in Bovine to test the idea of killing off / segregating infected cattle was just one of the first examples systems biology that I learned. Edit: You'll note that the wikipedia page lists "culling" as the treatment.During the first half of the 20th century, M. bovis is estimated to have been responsible for more losses among farm animals than all other infectious diseases combined.
Oh nice, just as antibiotic resistant TB is on the rise.
Heh, I did notice. In my more insensitive moments, I've sometimes wondered if culling (purely in the interest of human survival as a species) would ever be necessary and under what conditions, or even if the human race as it is now would benefit from culls. For example, if antibiotic resistant syphilis spreads and mutates into to something much worse than it already is. I really, really hope that nothing like that ever happens. As for systems biology, both my family and my best-childhood friend's family have a whole lot of biologists and I sometimes think I might have been more interested in bio as a subject if that hadn't been the case. Of course, I wish I had the time to learn a great deal more about biology now, but somehow I don't really see it happening. Still, systems biology looks pretty interesting . . .
Even if you could perfectly predict who is most likely to spread a disease, it still boils down to the trolley problem of whether it's moral to actively kill one person to save the many. And once go down that road, any sort of logical consistency is almost impossible... Never say never! There's plenty of different subjects that touch on biology. The knowledge of my original comment was learned from a public health seminar where no knowledge of chemistry/physics/microbiology was required.I've sometimes wondered if culling (purely in the interest of human survival as a species) would ever be necessary and under what conditions, or even if the human race as it is now would benefit from cull.
Of course, I wish I had the time to learn a great deal more about biology now, but somehow I don't really see it happening.