Research Themes
Our research at the Centre for Pandemics and One Health Research (P1H) is organised around four interconnected themes that together support pandemic preparedness. By combining work on emerging viruses, computational epidemiology, population immunity, and wildlife-human spillovers, we aim to strengthen our collective ability to anticipate, evaluate, and respond to future pandemic threats.
Avian Influenza / Disease X
Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, together with as-yet-unknown pathogens collectively referred to as "Disease X", represent some of the most significant pandemic threats of our time. Within this theme we develop and test new vaccine candidates, and we build predictive tools to better understand how immune responses are generated against viruses with pandemic potential. The work spans early-stage in silico modelling through to first-in-human clinical trials.
VAXPRED: One of four consortia in the IMI-EU consortium Inno4vac, led by Gunnveig Grødeland. The aim is to develop in silico models that can predict how immune responses will be generated by vaccination or exposure to a particular virus. A secondary objective is to investigate how antibody formation is affected by repeated exposure to variants of viruses from the same family, such as influenza and coronavirus.
Hvordan vaksiner kan bli mer tilpasset
Phase I clinical trial with new vaccine against influenza H7N9: Influenza H7N9 is a virus with the potential to cause the next pandemic. Grødeland has developed a vaccine against this virus, which is now being tested in humans for the first time. The clinical trial is being conducted at Ullevål in collaboration with Dag Kvale, and is currently funded by the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority. Several other sources of funding, including the Research Council of Norway and the K.G. Jebsen Foundation, have been necessary to bring the vaccine to clinical trials.
Antigen targeting to HLA Class II Molecules
Digital Twin for epidemiology
Computational models that integrate real-time data with mechanistic predictions offer powerful new tools for pandemic preparedness. Within this theme we develop digital twin frameworks that allow researchers and decision-makers to explore how different intervention and vaccination strategies might play out under a wide range of plausible pandemic scenarios, drawing important lessons from SARS-CoV-2 and earlier outbreaks.
A Digital Twin for vaccination strategies at geographic scales, led by Einar Broch Johnsen: A digital twin is a modelling framework that integrates real-time sensor data with model-based predictions. Our goal is to demonstrate the potential of digital twins to understand the effects of different vaccine strategies for "Pandemic X", the next pandemic caused by an unknown pathogen. In this project, we will develop digital twin models to study likely future pandemic scenarios, combining in silico models with real-world data to make the experiments as realistic as possible. The digital twin will enable us to explore many different scenarios through "what if" experiments with a highly configurable model. Our starting point is a digital twin framework which models a pandemic emergence at the global scale.
How to avoid a local epidemic from becoming a pandemic (PNAS Pub.)
Digital Twin project - Homepage
Resilience and Population Immunity
A key strategy for managing emerging pathogens in the future is to increase our understanding of the baseline immunity present within the population. It's important to note that this baseline immunity likely varies across different age groups and geographical locations, due to varying exposure to different viruses and bacteria in different regions. With increased knowledge of this baseline protection in a heterogeneous population, we will be better equipped to perform accurate risk assessments for new pathogens, and to design vaccination strategies that work well across diverse groups, including those at higher risk of severe disease.
Effect of vaccination in obesity: People with obesity often have an increased risk of serious illness following infection with influenza or coronavirus. Unfortunately, vaccines tend to have reduced efficacy in this demographic. Grødeland is leading a study funded by the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority to investigate antibody formation after vaccination in the context of obesity.
Wildlife-Human interface
Most emerging infectious diseases originate at the interface between wildlife, domestic animals, and humans. Understanding how, when, and why pathogens cross from animal reservoirs into human populations — and how environmental, biological, and societal factors shape the resulting outbreaks — is essential for pandemic preparedness. This theme combines historical, ecological, and One Health perspectives, recognising that human, animal, and environmental health are deeply intertwined. It also addresses how the population and the authorities perceive zoonotic threats and the degree of acceptance for implementing effective measures at the appropriate level.
Synergy-Plague: This is a multidisciplinary ERC Synergy project (ERC-2023-SyG), led by Nils Chr. Stenseth and 3 international co-PIs, to reconstruct the environmental, biological, and societal drivers of plague outbreaks in Eurasia between 1300 and 1900 CE. The project is based on the hypothesis that plague waves and clinical differences resulted from unique alignments of multiple events: environmental (climatic and soil-chemical), biological (from individual to ecosystem) and societal (demographic, socio-economic and political). Plague (Yersinia pestis) is used as a model because of its historical significance in Europe, as well as its being a well studied system by both natural scientists and historians. Additionally, the disease still affects populations today. Improving our understanding of the drivers, patterns, and clinical variations of historical plague outbreaks will contribute to our ongoing struggle with epidemic diseases, present and future.
One Health Networks: Interdisciplinary research is crucial to understand the decisive factors driving spillover and outbreak dynamics, and to explore how we can best prepare for the future from both societal and legal perspectives. At P1H, we are working to establish networks and projects that enable this kind of interdisciplinary research. Take a look at our current One Health networks and the published report from the Lancet One Health Commission (2025).
Tools
Leverage synergies between education, research, and capacity building to address complex future pathogens that could cause the next pandemic.
Training
P1H will serve as a forum for academic exchange and debate about pandemic and one-health research to promote further research on these themes, and to support existing research in Oslo.
Initiate and support educational offerings that enable tomorrow's professionals and leaders to handle uncertainty and complex problems like pandemics, considering prevention, management, and innovative thinking.
Communication
P1H is centered around research but will also increase awareness and understanding of how we can work with complex societal problems among our colleagues, students, future researchers, and decision-makers at various levels.
P1H will assess our objectives against quantifiable data such as publications, awarded research projects, international and national collaborations, completed teaching and professional seminars and lectures, as well as visibility in media and social platforms.