Nigel Gibbens, Chief Veterinary Officer
Prior to joining the UK government services in 1990, Nigel worked in private practice in his early career and in Government veterinary services in Belize and Yemen.
Nigel enjoys cycling, walking, at home and abroad, gardening and DIY.
Alastair Jon Hayton BVM&S DCHP MRCVS
RCVS Specialist In Cattle Health and Production
Alastair is a Director in Synergy Farm Health Ltd, a farm animal veterinary practice based in the South West of England and SureFarm Ltd. He holds the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) Diploma in Cattle Health and Production and is a RCVS Recognised Specialist in Cattle Health and Production.
Aside his practice responsibilities, he acts as a consultant to individual farms, pharmaceutical companies, universities, industry and veterinary bodies on all areas of cattle health and production both within the UK and internationally. Between 2002 and 2005 he sat on BCVA Council and was Chair of Bovine Tuberculosis for BCVA between 2003 and 2005.
He has written and presented several papers relating to a variety of subjects within the field of cattle health and production and has co-authored a book “Practical Cattle Farming” published by Crowood Press and is co-editor of Dairy Herd Health published by CAB International.
Professor Ian Boyd
Professor Boyd is the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government on Food and Environment. In the past he has been Director of the Scottish Oceans Institute at the University of St Andrews and the Sea Mammal Research Unit, a partner institute of the Natural Environment Research Council since 2001.
He is also currently an adviser to the Principal’s Office at the University of St Andrews focussing upon commercialisation and knowledge exchange. He is on the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science and is a former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Zoology.
He was responsible for creating several companies that are owned by the University of St Andrews and these now have international subsidiaries in the USA, Canada and Hong Kong.
He has BSc and DSc degrees for the University of Aberdeen, a PhD from Cambridge University and has received prizes for his research including the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London and the Bruce Medal for Polar Science from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Society of Biology.
Professor Mark Chambers
Mark graduated in 1989 from the University of Bristol with a BSc in Cell & Molecular Pathology and went on to gain a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1992 for his work on cervical cancer.
Two post-doctoral positions at Imperial College London followed where he first started working on tuberculosis in humans. In 1996 he moved to the government Veterinary Laboratories Agency (now Animal and Plant Health Agency, APHA) to undertake work on vaccines, pathology, small animal models, and diagnostics for animal tuberculosis.
He has led a number of Defra projects in this area ever since. Mark has published extensively in the area of human and animal tuberculosis and related disciplines. His team was responsible for the work that led to the licensing of BadgerBCG, the first licensed vaccine against tuberculosis in animals.
His current research interests focus on the development of an oral vaccine against tuberculosis in badgers. In April 2012 Mark was appointed acting TB Science Lead and Head of the TB Department at APHA. In October 2013 he was appointed Professor of Veterinary Bacteriology at the University of Surrey and Head of Bacteriology Department at APHA. He is Discipline Champion for Bacteriology at APHA.
Professor Christianne Glossop
Christianne was appointed the first Chief Veterinary Officer for Wales in June 2005. Working within the Welsh Government she heads up the Office of the Chief Veterinary Officer, and is Director responsible for animal health and welfare policy and strategy.
Her top priorities are to work with all interested parties to raise standards of animal health and welfare, ensure a state of preparedness for any incursion of exotic notifiable disease, and to drive forward the TB eradication programme in Wales.
Christianne qualified from the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), London, where she also completed her PhD on aspects of cattle fertility.
She has specialised in food animal production and medicine throughout her career, with a particular interest in breeding technologies. She is Past President of both the International and British Pig Veterinary Societies, and has also served on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and British Veterinary Association Councils.
Joining the State Veterinary Service (now Animal and Plant Health Agency) during the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease epidemic, her last role within that organisation was Divisional Veterinary Manager in Reading.
She is an Associate of the Royal Agricultural Societies, Honorary Fellow of the RVC and the University of Aberystywth, and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Plymouth and from Harper Adams University.
Pete Orpin
Peter graduated from Bristol 1983. He worked in New Zealand in dairy and beef practice for one year in 1987.
He was president of the BCVA in 1999 and during that time was actively involved in the BCVA Health Planning group.
He is currently a partner in a 28 vet practice in Leicestershire and primarily involved in dairy work, lecturing, consultancy and farmer training.
Peter’s major interests are in preventive medicine, health planning and practice development and his particular interests are Johne's disease and cost effective control mechanisms.
He has tutored over 250 vets in Johne's control over the last 3years and presented papers on Johne's at the World Buiatrics (Chile, Lisbon, ) and the International Para TB conference (Sydney and Parma). He has recently returned from a Johne’s consultancy and training project in China.
Peter is also a Director of myhealthyherd.com®: a web health management tool to help vets and farmers improve cattle health.
Peter has worked with Dick Sibley to develop the first complete online Johne's control module for myhealthyherd.com and is also a Special Lecturer in Cattle Medicine at Nottingham University.
Dick Sibley
Director and Principal of West Ridge Veterinary Practice
Director of Myhealthyherd.com Ltd
Director and principal of West Ridge Veterinary practice, a commercial veterinary practice in rural South West England. I lead a team of 14 veterinary surgeons dealing mostly with cattle in this heavily stocked agricultural area, which is a hot spot for Bovine TB.
Director of myhealthyherd.com, a web based health management programme which includes an infectious disease module which has been used widely in major disease programmes for infectious diseases such as Johnes and BVD, particularly in regional programmes in South West England.
Past secretary and president of the BCVA, and Honorary Lifetime member of BCVA
Dr Neil J Watt BVMS, PhD, MRCVS
Neil is a veterinary pathologist and qualified from the Glasgow vet school in 1977. After a year in large animal practice in North Yorkshire he completed a PhD on bovine respiratory disease caused by Bovine Respiratory Syncytial virus (BRSV).
Following this he studied the immunology and pathology of Border Disease and Maedi Visna virus (MVV) in sheep and became senior lecturer in veterinary pathology at the 'Dick' Vet. In 1996 he joined the Home Office and was involved in the regulation of animal experiments focusing on biotechnology and genetically altered animals including 'Dolly' the sheep.
In 2000 Neil and immunologist colleague Professor Gordon Harkiss formed MV Diagnostics Ltd, a veterinary diagnostics company which designs and produces ELISA and multiplex tests for animal diseases.
The company was formed in 2000 and has sold nearly 2 million tests worldwide for diseases such as MVV/Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis (CAE) and Caseous Lymphadenitis (CLA) in sheep and goats. Working with Enfer Scientific Ltd in Ireland they have helped develop their multiplex technology to create serological tests for a variety of diseases in goats, sheep and cattle.
The Norwegian dairy industry are a major user of their tests which they are using to eradicate CAEV and CLA from their dairy goats, and to screen their dairy cattle for BRSV and seven other diseases.
They have worked with Enfer on their Enferplex blood test for TB in cattle and have adapted this to a variety of other species including camelids, goats, deer and monkeys. MV Diagnostics and Enfer are working with Synergy Farm Health on blood tests for TB in farm animals.
Prof Gordon D Harkiss Bsc Hons (Biol. Sci), PhD (Immunology)
Gordon started his immunological studies as a research officer at the world-famous Strangeways and Addenbrookes laboratories at Cambridge University. He later moved to the ‘Dick’ vet and went on to become Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Research in Comparative Respiratory Medicine and Professor of Veterinary Immunopathology.
He is now Emeritus Professor of Immunology at the University of Edinburgh and has over 30 years’ experience in research in basic immunology, autoimmunity, vaccination, and diagnosis, pathogenesis and control of small ruminant lentiviruses with over 80 peer-reviewed articles and reviews in national and international journals.
He also has extensive teaching experience spanning 25 years in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in immunology, microbiology, and molecular biology to medical, veterinary, and science students. With veterinary colleague Dr Neil Watt he formed MV Diagnostics Limited in 2000, developing and marketing diagnostic ELISA kits for MVV/CAEV and CLA in sheep and goats.
Collaboration with Enfer Scientific Ltd has resulted in the development, validation and marketing singleplex /multiplex kits for important animal diseases including bovine TB.
Glyn Hewinson
Glyn Hewinson is currently the Lead Scientist for TB at the Animal and Plant Health Agency where he is responsible for all scientific aspects of bovine TB Agency. Prior to this he was Chief Scientist of the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency. He graduated in microbiology from Bristol University, UK, and obtained a D. Phil in Microbiology from the University of Oxford, UK.
He then moved to the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the same university, where he developed a keen interest in the molecular basis of bacterial pathogenesis. He was appointed Head of the TB Research Group at VLA Weybridge, UK, in November 1996, where he led a multidisciplinary team involved in the development of tuberculosis vaccines for badgers and cattle and of improved diagnostic tests for tuberculosis in these species.
Glyn also introduced the use of genotyping of Mycobacterium bovis isolates for epidemiological purposes in GB. This has resulted in Glyn’s growing interest in the molecular evolution of M. bovis. Glyn was leader of the M. bovis genome-sequencing project and a member of the team that sequenced the genome of the current TB vaccine strain, BCG.
He is a visiting professor at Imperial College, London, a named OIE expert on bovine tuberculosis, a Jenner Investigator and a member of the Executive Committee of the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford and Chair of the Acid Fast Club (the UK’s Scientific Club for those with an interest in the mycobacterial infections including human TB). Recently Glyn was elected the first Chair of the Global Research Alliance for Bovine TB.
Dr Paul Debenham
Paul’s current role at LGC acts to initiate, coordinate or support innovative R&D towards new services and products across the LGC group. Within this remit Paul has led a number of initiatives addressing pharmacogenetic developments linked to drug metabolism, efficacy and adverse reactions. LGC has been involved with CYP2D6 poor metabolism analysis services, clozapine response prediction service, and recently provided the near patient DNA technology for the European trial of genotyping of patients for warfarin dosage setting. The near patient technology has more recently started to be the focus of studies related to clinical applications.
Paul’s background started with a doctorate at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, through postdoctoral research in Canada leading to appointment as a tenured scientist with the UK’s Medical Research Council in 1984. He joined ICI in 1987 as the first Scientific Services Director of the novel genetic fingerprinting business Cellmark. In 1993 Paul became MD of University Diagnostics Ltd. and built its reputation as a pioneering company in a wide range of DNA diagnostics until 1997 when it was acquired by LGC. Paul led the LGC Life Sciences business until 2007 with his appointment to his current role.
Paul was a member of the Department of Health’s Human Genetics Commission from 2004 until 2012.
Dr Andrew Conlan
Andrew Conlan is based in the Disease Dynamics Unit (DDU) at the Department of Veterinary Medicine in Cambridge.
Andrew obtained a MPhys degree in Mathematical Physics from the University of Edinburgh before moving to the Department of Zoology in Cambridge in 2002 to undertake a PhD on childhood infectious disease epidemiology with Bryan Grenfell.
He has remained in Cambridge since then furthering his research on disease dynamics in the Department of Applied Mathematics (DAMTP) and the Department of Veterinary Medicine. His research has focused on understanding the stochastic persistence of infectious diseases, with a particular interest in the use of models to interpret epidemiological data and inform policy on control.
Dr Gareth Enticott
Dr Gareth Enticott is a senior lecturer at the School of Planning and Geography, Cardiff University.
His research examines the social impacts of bovine TB, farmers’ understandings of biosecurity and bovine TB, and farmers’ confidence in badger vaccination.
His recent work examines the practical use of tests for bovine TB by vets, and the history of the TB eradication scheme in New Zealand.