Group A streptococcus (GAS) is responsible for a range of human diseases that vary in their clinical manifestations and severity. While numerous virulence factors have been described, the way these factors interact to promote different streptococcal diseases is less clear. In order to identify multifactorial relationships between GAS and the human host, novel high-throughput techniques such as ...

Social interactions among individuals are wide-spread, both in natural and domestic populations. As a result, trait values of individuals may be affected by genes in other individuals, a phenomenon known as Indirect Genetic Effects (IGEs). IGEs can be estimated using linear mixed models. The traditional IGE-model assumes that an individual interacts equally with all its partners, whether kin or...