Brian Allan

About

Brian Allan is a professor affiliated with the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois. His research focuses on the ecology of infectious diseases, particularly those transmitted via the bite of infected arthropods such as ticks and mosquitoes. He investigates the consequences of human-mediated global change, including climate change and land-use alterations, on the risk of exposure to parasites and pathogens carried by wildlife. His work emphasizes understanding how landscape changes influence the emergence and transmission of tick-borne diseases, utilizing a variety of tools including molecular technologies, remote sensing applications, and theoretical modeling. In addition to his primary research, Brian Allan holds several campus affiliations. He serves as the Associate Director for Academic Affairs at the School of Integrative Biology, and has roles as Acting Head of Entomology, Professor of Entomology, and as an affiliate of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the Center for Global Studies. His contributions extend to teaching, research, and collaborative efforts aimed at understanding and mitigating the risks associated with vector-borne diseases.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Computer Science
• Immunology
• Biology
• Toxicology
• Zoology
• Cartography
• Geography

Selected publications

• Landscape features predict the current and forecast the future geographic spread of Lyme disease

  Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2020 · 48 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  will probably be detected based upon historical drivers of geographic spread. Our findings leverage resources dedicated to tick and human disease reporting and provide the opportunity to take proactive steps (e.g. educational efforts) to prevent and limit transmission in areas of future geographic spread.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Effect of life stage and pesticide exposure on the gut microbiota of Aedes albopictus and Culex pipiens L

  Scientific Reports · 2020 · 30 citations

  Pesticides commonly contaminate the aquatic environments inhabited by mosquito juveniles. However, their role in shaping the mosquito microbiota is not well understood. We hypothesized that environmentally relevant concentrations of atrazine, permethrin and malathion will mediate a shift in the mosquito gut bacterial community structure due to their toxic effect on the aquatic bacterial communities, and reduce mosquito gut bacterial diversity by enriching pesticide-degrading bacterial communitie…

  DOI

• Effects of cattle on vector-borne disease risk to humans: A systematic review

  PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2023-12-19 · 17 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Vector-borne pathogens (VBPs) causing vector-borne diseases (VBDs) can circulate among humans, domestic animals, and wildlife, with cattle in particular serving as an important source of exposure risk to humans. The close associations between humans and cattle can facilitate the transmission of numerous VBPs, impacting public health and economic security. Published studies demonstrate that cattle can influence human exposure risk positively, negatively, or have no effect. There is a critical nee…

  PublisherDOI

• Environmental Drivers of Gulf Coast Tick (Acari: Ixodidae) Range Expansion in the United States

  Journal of Medical Entomology · 2022-07-20 · 16 citations

  articleSenior author

  In the United States, the Gulf Coast tick (Amblyomma maculatum Koch) is a species of growing medical and veterinary significance, serving as the primary vector of the pathogenic bacterium, Rickettsia parkeri (Rickettsiales: Rickettsiaceae), in humans and the apicomplexan parasite, Hepatozoon americanum, in canines. Ongoing reports of A. maculatum from locations outside its historically reported distribution in the southeastern United States suggest the possibility of current and continuing range…

  PublisherDOI

• Sociodemographic factors associated with Kyasanur forest disease in India - a retrospective study

  IJID Regions · 2024-02-15 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  Objectives: Kyasanur forest disease (KFD) is a tick-borne disease in India affecting humans and two local non-human primate species. A critical knowledge gap in the scientific literature is the lack of information on how people's sociodemographic factors influence KFD occurrence. Methods: We analyzed available data on KFD from three data sources: (a) 104 peer-reviewed articles using keyword searches on PubMed Central and Google Scholar, (b) 116 Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases reports, a…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CNH: An Ecological Trap for Parasites and Its Impacts on Human Disease Risk, Nutrition, and Income

  NSF · $1.5M · 2013–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Jinhui Yan

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  36 shared

• Phong V. V. Le

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  36 shared

• Thanh H. Nguyen

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  36 shared

• Praveen Kumar

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  36 shared

• Andrew W. Taylor‐Robinson

  University of Pennsylvania

  36 shared

• Lei Zhao

  36 shared

• Ephantus J. Muturi

  Agricultural Research Service

  22 shared

• Allison M. Gardner

  University of Maine

  16 shared

Labs

• The Allan LabPI

Similar researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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• Richard Akreshh-36
• Asef Bayath-34