New funding for Soulsby Foundation

Posted on February 13, 2020 by - News

The Soulsby Foundation has recently been awarded a grant by the Alborada Trust (http://www.alboradatrust.com/) of £25,000 each year for the next five years (2020-24). The Trustees plan to match this funding each year which will allow the Foundation to distribute around £50,000 on Fellowships each year.

The Foundation has received 26 applications for the 2020 Fellowships, a significant increase on last year, so this additional funding is most welcome.

The successful Fellows will be announced in June at the World One Health Congress in Edinburgh.

Diagnosis and eradication of PPRV in Tanzania

Posted on February 11, 2020 by - News

2018 Soulsby Fellow, Dr Camilla Benfield, shows the value of her Fellowship for the diagnosis and eradication of PPRV in Tanzania.

Please click here to view the video on Facebook

Professor Satya Parida, Dr Mana Mahapatra and Dr Camilla Benfield of The Pirbright Institute and The Royal Veterinary College were at Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance.

Video credits: Mpoli Pictures

An ecosystems view on PPRV, from Rome… Camilla Benfield reports

Posted on August 16, 2019 by - Fellows' posts

Delegates at the first expert meeting on PPRV at the livestock-wildlife interface, held at FAO Headquarters
Acknowledgement ©FAO/Giuseppe Carotenuto

The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN), whose mandate is to build a world without hunger, has set PPRV high on its agenda. Eradicating PPRV will help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG1, to end poverty and SDG2, to end hunger. Removing the scourge of goat plague will enhance resilience of communities and empower women, who in many cultures are in charge of small ruminant farming.

Fellowships awarded for One Health projects on food safety, zoonotic disease and Alzheimer’s disease

Posted on June 3, 2019 by - News

Funds allocated to researchers conducting research around the Globe

Researchers working across the wide range of One Health have been awarded fellowship funds to allow them to travel to progress their understanding in their research areas.

Three fellowships, in total worth over £25,000, have been awarded to support research into food safety, the zoonotic disease – trypanosomiasis, and Alzheimer’s disease.

The fellowships are awarded by the Soulsby Foundation –  a charity that supports researchers, particularly those early in their career, working on One Health topics.

Pathogens and policy in the post-truth era – Harriet Auty

Posted on June 2, 2019 by - Fellows' posts

Harriet Auty

Welcome to this blog – the first in a series that I will write over the next year. I am a veterinary epidemiologist based at SRUC in Inverness. Over the years my work has focused on a number of pathogens, but I admit to somewhat of an obsession for trypanosomes – parasitic organisms that cause serious disease in humans and animals, and the tsetse that carry them.

Pathogens, Pigs & Policies: Investigating food safety in the pork value chains of Nairobi – Lian Thomas

Posted on June 2, 2019 by - Fellows' posts

Lian Thomas

Nairobi is a city of juxtapositions, informal iron sheet housing sits in the shadow of expensive apartment buildings, expensive SUVs slow down to let cows, goats and the occasional pig to cross the road and international supermarkets share a street with informal street-food vendors.

This bustling city is an example of rapidly urbanising areas across the globe where a dynamic food system is striving to feed a growing population. There are many challenges in the formation of sustainable, secure and safe food systems and the concept of One Health is a tool that can help us in our quest to solve them.

Alzheimer’s disease… in cats? – Lorena Sordo BVMS MSc

Posted on June 2, 2019 by - Fellows' posts

Lorena Sordo

I have always loved all kind of animals and, since I have a memory, my biggest dream was to become a vet and to help all the animals in any way I could. My dream came true in 2006, when I graduated from vet school. I practised as a vet for 8 years at my own small animals veterinary clinic, where I acquired a great interest in animal welfare. A few years later, I moved to Scotland to study a master in applied animal behaviour and animal welfare at The University of Edinburgh, which later led to my PhD.

I am, proudly, one of those persons who like to surprise others with rare facts that not many people know, so I enjoy enormously when people ask me about my PhD. What I enjoy the most is to see their faces when I tell them that I study dementia in cats. As a veterinary surgeon myself, I consider that I am not easily impressed, but I must confess that I was really shocked the first time I heard about aged cats getting Alzheimer’s disease-like symptoms. I thought that disease was uniquely human.