13.00 – 15:00 CEST, 9th June 2023

Online – hosted by One Health EJP Work Package 6 team

Roberto La Ragione graduated in 1995 and then went on to study for a post graduate degree in veterinary microbiology at the RVC. In 1996 he moved to the government Veterinary Laboratories Agency to undertake a PhD on the pathogenesis of E. coli in poultry. In 2005 Roberto was appointed head of pathogenesis and control at the APHA and in 2010 he was appointed Professor of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology at the University of Surrey.

Roberto gained the FRCPath in 2010 and in 2012 was appointed the Associate Dean for Veterinary Strategy in the School of Veterinary Medicine. In 2014 he was appointed Head of the Department of Pathology and Infectious Diseases and 2019 Deputy Head of School. In 2021 he was appointed Head of the School of Biosciences. Roberto is the Chair of the Royal College of Pathologists Veterinary Pathology Specialty Advisory Committee, Chair of the Humanimal Trust, a Trustee of the Houghton Trust, a member of the APHA Science Advisory Board, a member of the FSA ACMSF AMR sub-committee, a BSI committee member and contributes to associated ISO working groups. Roberto is the past president of the Med-Vet-Net Association and the Veterinary Research Club. Roberto is an Associate member of the European College of Veterinary Microbiology (AECVM). In 2020 he was awarded Honorary Associateship of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (HonAssocRCVS).

Roberto’s current research interests focus on AMR and understanding the pathogenesis of zoonotic bacterial pathogens. Roberto has a particular interest in the development of control and intervention strategies, including rapid diagnostics, vaccines, and probiotics for the control of pathogens such as Salmonella, Brachyspira and E. coli in food producing animals. Roberto has published over 190 peer reviewed papers in the area of microbiology. Roberto chaired the webinar presentations.

Anja Richter holds a Master in Molecular and Cell Biology and a PhD in Microbiology. She worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at the Costerton Biofilm Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, and at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing in Berlin, Germany. During her PhD she investigated the intracellular regulation of biofilm formation in Escherichia coli and shifted her research interest to the opportunistic pathogen Burkholderia cenocepacia when working in Denmark. Back in Germany, she became part of an intradisciplinary research consortium and analysed bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation on laser-textured surfaces.

In spring 2022, she joined the Unit for Hospital Hygiene, Infection prevention and Control at the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, where she focuses on disinfection of biofilm-associated pathogens. Since then, she has also been involved in the OHEJP project BIOPIGEE – Biosecurity practices for pig farming across Europe. ORCID: 0000-0001-5297-7350. She presented “Biofilm Cultivation Models for Efficacy Testing of Disinfectants against Salmonella Typhimurium Biofilms” as part of the BIOPIGEE project.

Marwa Hassan is a Senior Research Fellow in Microbiology and Molecular Biology at the University of Surrey. Marwa has over 10 years’ experience in diagnostics and antimicrobial resistance with particular interest in single-cell microbiology, bacterial persistence and in vitro and ex vivo organ models. Marwa joined Prof La Ragione’s group to work on developing novel diagnostics for rapid detection of AMR for zoonotic diseases and understanding the spread of AMR in the environment using an in vitro animal model.

Before joining the University of Surrey, she worked as a research fellow at School of Life Sciences, Warwick University, developing an ex vivo lung model for diagnostics and understanding antimicrobial tolerance in single and polymicrobial biofilm infections. Marwa obtained her PhD from The University of Queensland, Australia, where she developed different culture-independent diagnostic technologies for the direct real-time detection of bacterial sepsis and methods to understand the role of bacterial persistence in recurrent infections.

Marwa presented for WORLDCOM project.

Gro Skøien Johannessen is a senior research scientist at the section for Food Safety and Animal Health Research at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute. She has broad and long experience in working with foodborne pathogens along the food production chain using different methodologies. She has participated in Norwegian and international research projects and surveillance studies. Her main research interests are Shiga-toxin producing E. coli and food safety of fresh produce. She has also taken part in different research projects regarding Campylobacter. Gro was chair of the microbiology group in NMKL (Nordic-Baltic Committee of Food Analysis) from 2015 until 2022 and represented NMKL in ISO TC 34/SC 9. Gro has been involved in several of the projects within One Health EJP and in this webinar she presented the JRP AIR-SAMPLE: Air sampling, A low-cost screening tool in biosecured broiler production.

Christen Rune Stensvold is a senior scientist based at Statens Serum Institut and holds a PhD in Health Sciences. Christen has been working in the field of clinical microbiology for 20 years. His research deals with the diagnosis, epidemiology, genetic diversity, and taxonomy of common intestinal parasites and their role in health and disease. He is particularly interested in links between gut parasites and gut bacteria in human and non-human hosts. He has published more than 150 scientific, peer-reviewed papers, of which at least 60 are on Blastocystis.

Christen presented for PARADISE project.