Center fof Cancer Systems Biology

Infectious diseases and computer malwares spread among humans and computers through the network of contacts among them. These networks are characterized by wide connectivity fluctuations, connectivity correlations and the small world property. I show that these network proper-ties lead to a novel spreading law which exhibits an initial power law growth, with an exponent determined by the av-erage node distance on the network. This behavior is fur-thermore diminished or enhanced by disassortative or as-sortative connectivity correlations, respectively. Based on our current knowledge of several networks underlying the spreading of infectious diseases and computer malwares I predict that this law should characterize modern epidemic outbreaks. Finally I discuss the impact of these results on intervention strategies to halt epidemic outbreaks