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Veterinary Epidemiology Team Leader
George Gunn (opens in new window)
Professor George Gunn, SAC Professor of Population Medicine and Zoonoses, is a SAC Research Team Leader and Head of Veterinary Epidemiology based at SAC, Inverness.
His current focus includes livestock disease control with an overarching interest in population medicine and the dynamics of infectious inter-herd diseases and zoonoses. Uniquely he uses his background in large animal veterinary practice combined with experience working alongside livestock keepers with outbreak investigation studies and clinical pathology expertise to investigate how effective disease control should best be implemented. It was George’s increasing involvement in academia that led to a team moving from SAC Consulting to SAC Research in 2005: the balance away from consultancy in favour of research.
A project manager working at national and international levels, George is current Director of the EPIC partnership and part of the management teams for the concluding EC ParaTB Tools Project and Defra surveillance review. He has extensive experience of working with industry and helped initiate several cattle disease programmes, including HI-Health, PCHS and Cattle Health Certification Standards (CHeCS).
George is increasingly involved in senior level policy development. With others he has pioneered new approaches which combine epidemiology with socioeconomic factors to examine how infectious diseases fit within the biological, economic and social context of farming and the food marketing chain.
George is increasingly called upon for national and international consultancies. He is a visiting professor in Veterinary Epidemiology at the University of Glasgow; a specialist in veterinary epidemiology for the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons; and a Diplomat at both the European College of Veterinary Public Health and the European College of Cattle Health Management. To add to this George frequently acts as an external examiner -for example at institutions including the Universities of Edinburgh and Utrecht.
George is regularly invited to speak at international meetings and conferences.
Research Interests
Veterinary Epidemiology Team Leader with:
Personal Chair in Population Medicine and Zoonoses
RCVS Specialist in Veterinary Epidemiology
MSc Analytical Epidemiology, University of Guelph
MRCVS BVMS University of Glasgow
Expertise and specialising in:
Population medicine, active surveillance and clinical pathology
Outbreak investigation, observational studies, research project management, zoonotic disease and data analysis
Selected Publications
- Stott, A.W., Humphry, R.W. and Gunn, G.J. (2010) Modelling the effects of previous infection and re-infection on the costs of bovine viral diarrhoea outbreaks in beef herds. Veterinary Journal 185, 138-143. (disease modelling, micro-economics)
- Gubbins, S., Szmaragd, C., Burgin, L., Wilson, A., Volkova, V., Gloster, J. & Gunn, G.J. 2010. Assessing the consequences of an incursion of a vector-borne disease. Identifying feasible incursion scenarios for blue tongue in Scotland. Epidemics (in press) (infectious disease modelling)
- Weldegebriel, H.T., Gunn, G.J. & Stott, A.W. 2009. Evaluation of producer and consumer benefits resulting from eradication of bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) in Scotland, United Kingdom. Preventative Veterinary Medicine 88, 49 – 56 (macro economics)
- Heffernan, C., Misturelli, F., Nielsen, L., Gunn, G.J. & Yu, J. 2009. Analysis of Pan-European attitudes to the eradication and control of bovine viral diarrhoea. Veterinary Record 164, 163 – 167 (socio-psychology)
- Lewis F.I., McKendrick I.J., Murray, F. and Gunn, G. J. (2009) Bayesian inference for within herd prevalence of Leptospira interrograns serovar Hardjo using bulk milk antibody testing. Biostatistics, 10(4), 719-728. Full Text