Dr Simon Gubbins

Group

Transmission Biology

Simon Gubbins is group leader in Transmission Biology at The Pirbright Institute. After completing a BSc in Mathematics at Imperial College London he undertook a PhD in Botanical Epidemiology at the University of Cambridge.

His main research interest is understanding the transmission of viral diseases of livestock across scales. This work explores the question of how the dynamics of viruses at one scale (for example, within an animal or within a farm) influence the dynamics at another scale (for example, between animals or between farms). A particular focus of his work is the epidemiology of foot-and-mouth disease and bluetongue, integrating field and laboratory data for these diseases into mathematical frameworks that can be used to inform disease control policy.

He has provided regular advice to policy makers, including those in Defra and the European Food Safety Authority. He was awarded the BBSRC Social Innovator of the Year award in 2013 (joint with Carrie Batten, Simon Carpenter and Peter Mertens at the Institute) for his work on the control of bluetongue.

Projects

African swine fever control tools

Enhancing UK resilience to African swine fever.

Understanding environmental and airborne transmission to improve control and surveillance of foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks

Enhancing FMD outbreak control through improved biosecurity and surveillance.

Application of molecular and immunological diagnostics to the prevention and control of bluetongue virus and related orbiviruses

Developing advanced diagnostics to combat major orbivirus threats.

Publications

Flannery J, Rajko-Nenow P, Hicks H, Hill H, Gubbins S, Batten C (2018)

Evaluating the most appropriate pooling ratio for EDTA blood samples to detect bluetongue virus using real-time RT-PCR

Journal Veterinary Microbiology

Read abstract

Waters R, Ludi A B, Fowler V L, Wilsden G, Browning C, Gubbins S, Statham B, Bin-Tarif A, Mioulet V, King D J, Colenutt C, Brown E, Hudelet P, King D P (2018)