Livestock improvement

Alistair is Chair of Animal Behaviour & Welfare at SRUC, with a primary focus on understanding the biology of positive welfare using behaviour as a starting point, but also using other disciplines and techniques as applicable including physiology, neurobiology, molecular biology and genetics. His team are also interested in the causes and consequences of ‘positive’ behaviour such as play in farm animals and for this have been studying differences between individuals and litters of pigs.

Eileen is a livestock genetics and systems researcher within the Animal & Veterinary Sciences Groups at SRUC, with experience in animal breeding, genetics, modelling and biostatistics. For SEFARI, Eileen is the Work Package Cordinator for Agricultural systems and land management; working on improving livestock management and genetics.

Dr Stew Burgess is the Head of the Vaccines and Diagnostics Department at the Moredun Research Institute, Edinburgh. He also leads the sheep scab research group, which focuses on developing novel tools for the control of sheep scab, caused by skin infestation with the sheep scab mite, Psoroptes ovis.

David is a principal scientist at the Moredun Institute, and has a longstanding interest in retroviral pathogenesis and his current research focusses on understanding the pathogenesis of ovine pulmonary adenocarcinoma and the development of diagnostic tests for controlling disease.

Andrew is a research leader in cell and molecular sciences at the James Hutton Institute. His current research interests include the production of novel diagnostics and vaccine candidates using plants, bacteria and nanotechnology; ciruclar bioeconomy, revalorization of waste streams and development of new biotechnologies; and involvement of nuclear domains and proteins in plant responses to virus infections and environmental cues.

Frank Katzer is a molecular parasitologist at the Moredun Institute working on protozoan parasites of veterinary and public health importance.

I originally trained as a vet, but was less interested in treating individual animals, than in improving animal health and welfare in the population as a whole. I therefore moved sideways into veterinary epidemiology. In my present role I use a number of statistical and modelling techniques to make inferences from animal test and disease data, and determine the effect of various test and control strategies.
In a previous EPIC project, I have looked at data on E. coli O157 in calves, liver fluke in cattle, Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD), sheep scab and bovine TB.

My long term interests focus on the relationship between sequence variation and protein function in relation to livestock disease.  I have studied the immune system of livestock species and genetic variation of pathogens for over 20 years and am interested in the molecular interactions between host and pathogen.

Dave is a researcher at the Moredun Research Institute, and his current research interests focus on improving diagnostics and control strategies for nematode infections of ruminants.