Willie Weir

My research is mainly in the field of veterinary infectious disease, principally tick-borne pathogens (Babesia, Theileria and Anaplasma), Giardia and Trypanosomes. I apply population genetic and genomic approaches to investigate diversity in pathogen populations together with transcriptomics, which allows the characterisation of cellular interactions at the host/parasite interface. I am particularly interested in emerging tick-borne veterinary pathogens in the UK, such as equine piroplasmosis, and the development of novel diagnostic assays for their detection.

I am also interested in the identification and validation of novel biomarkers for both infectious and non-infectious disease. This entails the bioinformatic mining of high-throughput sequencing datasets for diagnostic and prognostic applications. The ultimate goal of this research is the development of novel diagnostic approaches which will assist veterinary surgeons in their clinical decision making.