Members
Find out more about our team members.
Meet the team
Principal Investigator
Professor Christopher Proudman
Professor of Veterinary Clinical Science
Biography
Following graduation from the vet school at the University of Cambridge, Chris undertook specialist clinical training in equine gastroenterology and a PhD at the University of Liverpool. He was a clinical teacher and researcher at Liverpool University until 2013, focussing on the causes and treatment of equine intestinal disease. Following a move to the University of Surrey, where he led the development of the UK’s eighth school of veterinary medicine, he incorporated metagenomics and metabolomics into his research. He has supported the veterinary research community through chairing the Veterinary Advisory Committee of Petplan Charitable Trust, and past membership of the HBLB’s Veterinary Advisory Committee and the Scientific Steering Committee of the One Health European Joint Programme.
Principal Investigator
Professor Roberto La Ragione
Professor of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology, Head of the School of Biosciences
Biography
Roberto graduated in 1995 and holds a postgraduate degree in veterinary microbiology from the Royal Veterinary College and a PhD on the pathogenesis of E. coli in poultry from Royal Holloway, University of London. He was formerly Head of Pathogenesis and Control at the government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency before joining the founding team of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Surrey. Roberto is currently a Professor of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology and Head of the School of Biosciences. Roberto’s research focusses on zoonotic bacterial pathogens of livestock, poultry and companion animals. He has over 200 peer reviewed publications in the area of veterinary microbiology and pathology and is a member of several scientific advisory committees, including for the Food Standards Agency, Royal College of Pathologists, APHA and the Jenner Institute.
Jack Whitehouse
Research Fellow in Equine Microbiology
Biography
Jack graduated in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in Human Biosciences from the University of Northampton before undertaking a Master of Research in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Birmingham. In 2020, Jack undertook a PhD researching Canine Cutaneous and Renal Glomerular Vasculopathy (“Alabama Rot”) at the School of Veterinary Medicine, the University of Surrey. As a microbiologist, Jack’s expertise lies in gut microbiota exploration through metagenomics and metabolomics. Jack worked as part of the communication, and education and training team for the One Health European Joint Project, where he gained extensive experience in science communication and project management. In December 2023, Jack began a Research Fellow role investigating next-generation probiotics for equine health.
Kam Qureshi
Senior Research Laboratory Technician
Biography
After graduating from the University of Surrey (Medical Microbiology), Kam joined the staff at the University of Surrey as a laboratory technician within the Veterinary School. Kam is responsible for laboratory facilities and the running of specialist equipment. He has supported research projects ranging from tissue culture and nano technology to blood sampling and archiving.
Pat Sells
Equine Veterinary Surgeon and Visiting Research Fellow
Biography
Pat qualified from Liverpool Vet School in 2007 and spent almost 5 years in specialist racehorse practice in Newmarket, where he obtained his Certificate in Advanced Veterinary Practice. He currently specialises in equine stud medicine and offers a range of services for horses in training. Pat is a member of the expert Veterinary Advisory Committee for the Horserace Betting Levy Board.
Dr Arnoud van Vliet
Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Microbiology
Biography
After obtaining his PhD at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Arnoud worked at the University of Leicester, UK, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Erasmus MC-University Medical Center Rotterdam, working on different aspects of molecular microbiology of human, foodborne and zoonotic bacterial pathogens. In 2007, he took up a position as Research Leader at the Institute of Food Research, Norwich, UK, where he led a research group focusing on the foodborne pathogens Campylobacter and Listeria. He moved to the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Surrey in 2016, where he has built the bioinformatic infrastructure for the analysis of large genomic datasets and other bioinformatics techniques, while continuing his research on antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic infections of bacterial pathogens. Within the Horse Microbiome Research Group, Arnoud supports and maintains the bioinformatic facilities and helps with the interpretation of the results.
Past members
Joy Leng
Alumna, Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Biography
Joy has a BSc in Biology from the University of Manchester, an MSc in Advanced Sciences from the University of Liverpool and a PhD from the University of Reading. Her PhD focused on profiling the gut microbiome and metabonome of horses suffering from equine grass sickness. Joy then joined our group at the University of Surrey to work as a post-doctoral researcher where she developed an in-vitro model of the equine hind-gut before being lead researcher on the Well Foal Study. We were sorry to lose Joy in 2023 when she joined the University of Liverpool as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership Associate working with Unilever on a human skin microbiome project.
- ORCID: 0000-0001-8347-0339