Livestock Diseases

In 2016, Nuno Silva joined Moredun to set up a new research project to focus on Antimicrobial Resistance initially working on ovine mastitis and looking at the molecular mechanisms involved in conferring resistance in bacterial pathogens.

Current Research:
•Epidemiology of Antimicrobial Resistance in sheep
•Potential impact of AMR in wild life, environment and farm animals
•Antibiotic resistance from a food safety perspective

My research uses animal behaviour as a way to measure animal welfare, or to understand and solve animal welfare problems which involve behaviour.

My interest and expertise lies in quantitative agricultural and environmental science. The current areas of my work are:

• BVD, its eradication and sample size calculation for screening for BVD
• Antimicrobial resistance and its measurement
• The consequence of empirically derived contact networks in cattle on the spread of disease

Tracey's research interests include:

• Improving health of livestock (e.g. mastitis, lameness, Johne’s in cattle, scrapie in sheep)
• Role of animal health, fitness and survival on greenhouse gas emission
• Improving sustainability of farm enterprises
• The development of sustainable breeding goals and improvements to national genetic evaluations
• Merging and mining of national data to create and understand the biology of novel phenotypes so that the livestock industry can measure, monitor and manage their performance.

My research interests include:

With a background in behavioural and evolutionary ecology, Lucy is an animal ecologist with an interest in multi-trophic and multi-ecosystem interactions. She currently focuses on three contrasting systems to address questions about connectivity and cascading effects through ecosystems:

Tom's major interests are in mucosal immunology, specifically host-pathogen interactions at mucosal surfaces, and how these may inform future disease control strategies. In addition to exploring basic immunological questions in ruminant species, his work is also involved in the development of vaccines to control veterinary pathogens residing at mucosal surfaces, such as Escherichia coli O157:H7 in cattle and Teladorsagia circumcincta in sheep. He also has an interest in the immune basis of disease resistance and susceptibility in ruminant species. 

Eleanor is a researcher at the Moredun Research Institute. Her research focusses on Campylobacter species and other zoonotic pathogens.

Current interests:

• Quantitative mass spectrometry to characterise bacterial adaptation. 
• Identification of zoonotic pathogens using MALDI mass spectrometry.
• Campylobacter jejuni metabolic versatility in relation to host colonisation and disease outcome.
• Presence and transmission of zoonotic pathogens and AMR genes within wildlife populations.