Martin Llewellyn

My research has a broad focus around host-associated microbiota, parasites, molecular epidemiology, and the role of host-associated microbiota in parasitic disease.

My main research theme focuses on the role of commensal microbiota in salmonid energetics and nutrition. Funded by the BBSRC, Science Foundation Ireland and the Scottish Aquaculture Innovations Centre, we are building an in vivo simulator of the Atlantic Salmon gut alongside colleagues in BAHCM (Prof. Neil Metcalfe); Engineering (Prof. Bill Sloan, Dr. Umer Ijaz); University College Cork, Ireland and industrial collaborators Alltech and Marine Harvest.

Other funded interests cover interactions between sea lice (Lepoephtheirus and Caligus sp) and the commensal microbiota of their salmonid hosts, as well as similar interactions between the Leishmania and their human hosts.

My research ‘first love’ is the molecular epidemiology of the protozoan parasite Trpanosoma cruzi and I continue to work on the population genetics of this organism, as well as that of New World Leishmania in North, Central and South America.