Stanford Business magazine

GSB In Brief

He Tracks Swine Flu in Virtual World

Dr. Bruce Lee, MBA '98, this past summer was building a sort of "SimCity" aimed at guarding people against the H1N1 virus. Lee, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh,  joined forces with his colleagues on a National Institutes of Health project called the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study, more commonly known as Midas. The scientists are creating a virtual model to predict how people might react to an outbreak of the virus and how government can respond. The researchers plug in real data about infections and deaths, but human behavior is harder to simulate.

One of the most difficult situations for health officials, Lee told Business Week, is to know when the need to close schools and businesses outweighs the significant economic burden that results. Since in the real world, some people locked out of classrooms or offices don't stay home but go to the movies or the mall, their bad behavior is built into the model. "Not even [virtual people] will all do what they're told," Lee said.