Virology, Microbiology & Infectious Disease

Biography

After graduating at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland in 1986 I worked for 16 years as a private veterinary surgeon in southern Finland mainly in small animal and mixed practice. Between 2002 and 2004 I completed research-based Master’s degree studies on virology at the Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa on the detection of lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV) in samples of experimentally infected cattle using different diagnostic techniques. In 2004 I was employed by The Pirbright Institute as a research scientist to set up the full diagnostic capacity for capripoxviruses. Since 2006 I have been heading the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reference laboratory for lumpy skin disease (LSD), sheep pox (SPP) and goat pox (GTP) in Pirbright, UK. In 2007 I was appointed as OIE’s international expert for LSD, SPP and GTP. Since 2006 I have also been responsible of the veterinary care of experimental animals at Pirbright as a Named Veterinary Surgeon. My special interest in the research field for capripoxviruses is the epidemiology, control and eradication of the diseases as well as training and enhancement of diagnostic capacity for capripoxviruses in local and national reference laboratories in developing countries. Since late 2006 I have been investigating the role of hard tick vectors in the transmission of LSDV.

Research Interest

Veterinary expertise on lumpy skin disease, sheeppox and goatpox