Personal Chair: Mark Stevens

Mark Stevens has been made a Personal Chair in Microbial Pathogenesis.

Professor Stevens obtained a first-class degree in Microbiology & Virology from the University of Warwick.

He then completed his doctoral studies on the regulation of capsule expression in Escherichia coli at the University of Leicester in 1996.

After studying the influenza virus at the University of Reading he joined the Institute for Animal Health in 1999, where he rose to lead the Enteric Bacterial Pathogens Laboratory.

He has studied a range of Salmonella serovars, E. coli pathotypes and Campylobacter species, with emphasis on the molecular basis of intestinal colonisation, induction of pathology and protection in food-producing animals.

His use of novel animal models and genetic methods to unravel the role of bacterial factors during infection was recognised by an international prize for research that has reduced, refined and replaced animal use in the development of veterinary medicines.

Professor Stevens has also shown that stress hormones augment bacterial virulence.

He has also studied how the tropical pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei enters and exits cells by subverting actin dynamics.

He joined the Roslin Institute and the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies in January 2011.