July 2025

Bristol Veterinary School – Research Round-Up

Welcome to the latest Research Round-Up. Over the past six months, the five research communities at the Bristol Veterinary School have achieved significant milestones — from publishing in high-impact journals to securing prestigious grants and fostering global partnerships. Our researchers continue to break new ground in areas ranging from antimicrobial resistance and animal welfare to delivering advancements in veterinary education and clinical innovation.

Through interdisciplinary collaboration and scientific inquiry, we remain committed to enhancing animal health, welfare and veterinary practice both locally and globally.

 

Infection, Inflammation and Immunotherapy

Professor Paul Wigley (Animal Microbial Systems) concluded 2024 with two key publications. The first study, Salmonella and Salmonellosis in Wild Birds, explored the role of wild birds as both reservoirs and hosts of Salmonella, noting their potential to transmit the bacteria to humans through faecal contamination — a critical insight for public health surveillance.

His second publication assessed The Effect of Multicarbohydrase-Phytase Complex Supplementation on the Egg Production Performance, Egg Quality, and Economics of Laying Hens. This study demonstrated how dietary supplementation can improve performance metrics and the economic viability of egg production systems.

Dr Laura Peachey (Veterinary Parasitology) released a publication, Quantitative DNA metabarcoding reveals species composition of a macrocyclic lactone and pyrantel-resistant cyathostomin population in the UK. The research reveals that resistance is not a broad, multi-species phenomenon, but rather species-specific, with distinct parasites linked to resistance against different drug classes.

Building on this momentum, Dr Peachey has also secured funding for her project, Next Generation Diagnostics to Combat Multi-drug Resistant Cyathostomins in Thoroughbreds.

 

One Health Approaches to Antimicrobial Resistance

Dr Irene Bueno (Wildlife Health and Conservation) received two awards. One was the Best Paper Award from the American Chemical Society’s journal ES&T Water from a collaborative project with the University of Minnesota. The paper, Determination of the Antibiotic and Antibiotic Resistance Footprint in Surface Water Environments of a Metropolitan Area: Effects of Anthropogenic Activities, maps the geospatial distribution of antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant genes in surface waters, linking their prevalence to human activity. Dr Bueno has also received an AMR Impact Award to advance her research on Promoting Antimicrobial Stewardship in Wildlife: A Continuing Professional Development Approach.

Dr Bueno co-authored a publication with Professor Kristen Reyher, Dr Claire Scott, and Dr Alex Tasker: A Qualitative Exploration of the Enablers of and Barriers to Conformance with Antibiotic Withdrawal Periods on Smallholding, Peri-Urban Pig Farms in Kiambu County, Kenya (PLOS One). The study identifies key factors that influence compliance, including economic pressure and limited regulatory oversight, and calls for tailored interventions to reduce antibiotic residues in Kenyan pork markets.

Professor Reyher was further involved in three additional publications:

 

Dr Alex Tasker was involved in four other publications:

 

Dr Kayleigh Crouch co-authored a publication with Professor David Barrett: What do complementary and alternative medicines mean to UK dairy farmers and how do they use them? This paper reports on a study exploring the use of complementary and alternative medicine on dairy farms in the UK.

Dr Sion Bayliss delivered speeches at the Ineos Oxford Institute Early Career Researcher Conference on Multidisciplinary approaches to tackle AMR and at the ONE HEALTH THINK TANK MEETING at the University of Cape Town.

 

Clinical Research

Congratulations to the following colleagues on being awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons:

  • Dr Kate Allen, Associate Professor in Equine Sports Medicine
  • Dr Natalie Finch, Honorary Senior Research Fellow and Specialist in Feline Medicine (Langford Vets)
  • Dr Emi Barker, Clinical Lead in Clinical Pathology and Infectious Diseases, Senior Clinician in Small Animal Medicine
  • Dr Alison Major, Associate Clinical Lead in Diagnostic Imaging
  • Dr Lee Meakin, Honorary Senior Clinical in Soft Tissue and Specialist in Small Animal Surgery (Soft Tissue) [Langford Vets]
  • Professor Melanie Hezzell, Professor of Veterinary Cardiology

 

Animal Welfare and Behaviour (AWB)

Congratulations to the following colleagues in securing new grants to their projects:

  • Dr Carole Fureix: funding for upcoming visitorPhD candidate Gabriel Carreira Lencioni from University of Sao Paulo via the Brazilian Abroad doctorate program.
  • Tirion Cobby and Dr Emma Mellor: Langford Trust Seed Corn Funding PFAS in wildlife populations: are the species differences in contamination?
  • Dr Karen Mifsud: Langford Trust funding in Urinary hyaluronan concentrations in cats with CKD and hyperthyroidism.
  • Dr Emily Blackwell, Helena Tallack and Tom Harcourt-Brown: Langford Veterinary Services Clinical Research Grants in Patient demographics, long-term outcome and behavioural risk factors in canine episodic movement disorders.
  • Mariam Logunleko, Dr Sarah Lambton and Dr Jo Edgar: UFAW Small Project and Travel Awards for The relationship between keel bone fracture, welfare and productivity in layer breeders. They have also secured Research Community Funding to part-fund a Portable X-ray Machine for Bone Assessment.

 

Dr Liz Paul was awarded a BBSRC AWRN Business Interaction Grant for a project titled “Automated Computer Vision Monitoring of Uncertain Decisions, Anxiety-like Behaviour, and Positive and Negative Affect.”

Dr Irene Bueno was involved in three publications:

 

Professor Michael Mendl and Dr Carole Fureix contributed to Looking out for Danger: Theoretical and Empirical Issues in Translating Human Attention Bias Tasks to Assess Animal Affective States. This paper highlights the need for improved experimental design in adapting human attention bias tests for animal welfare research.

Professor Mendl was involved in three other publications:

 

Professor Toby Knowles also contributed to Continuous Overnight Monitoring of Body Temperature During Embryo Transfer Cycles as a Proxy for Establishing Progesterone Fluctuations by Comparison with P4 Blood Progesterone Results: A Prospective, Observational Study, identifying patterns in temperature-progesterone correlations.

Dr Andrew Grist published two welfare assessments:

  1. Assessment of Ante-Mortem Welfare Indicators and the Pathophysiology of Captive-Bolt Trauma in Equids at Slaughter, detailing poor stunning efficacy and stress indicators at an Italian abattoir.
  2. Assessment of Donkey (Equus asinus) Welfare at Slaughter in Ghana, highlighting concerns over aversive handling and ineffective stunning techniques such as blunt trauma and neck incision.

 

Dr Jillian Hendricks co-authored University Student Perspectives on Antimicrobial Peptide Use in Farm Animals, revealing support for antimicrobial peptides as alternatives to antibiotics, but also concerns around unintended consequences for animal and public health.

Dr Daniel Enriquez-Hidalgo released two publications:

 

Dr Benjamin Lecorps published Social learning during human-animal interaction: Effects on broiler chickens' behavior, which aimed to test whether broiler chickens can learn to trust humans through social learning by observing a conspecific receiving gentle handling.

 

AWB colleagues have also contributed through domestic and international engagement:

  • Dr Sarah Lambton led a welfare training workshop in Jakarta, Indonesia, promoting cage-free systems for laying hens. Funded by Open Philanthropy via Catalyst, it was attended by local veterinarians and officials.
  • Dr Daniel Enriquez-Hidalgo was a member of the Scientific Organizing Committee for the IV Pan-American Meeting on Agroecological Pasture Management, held in Florianópolis, Brazil, in October 2024.
  • Sarah Hall, PhD researcher, chaired a panel at the Oxford Real Farming Conference on cow-calf contact systems and delivered a lecture on holistic sustainability at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. She also took part in a stakeholder workshop led by the University of Leeds and DEFRA on the development of a UK-wide living labs network.
  • Dr Irene Bueno delivered an invited lecture on vulture conservation at the Secret World Caring for Wildlife Conference in Taunton.
  • Professor Mike Mendl delivered three invited lectures at a workshop on the Fundamentals of Animal Emotion in Wageningen University, Netherlands.
  • Dr Carole Fureix ran a stall 'The world through a rat’s eyes' together with Chris Handley at the Public Engagement Futures Schools Research Fair at S.S. Great Britain in Bristol.
  • Dr Suzanne Held was interviewed for ABC's radio programme 'What the duck?! Hollywood lied to us: Babe'.
  • Dr Tom Evans presented work on Animal Welfare frameworks for alien species at Wild Animal Welfare Grantee Meetup in London.
  • Dr Emma Mellor delivered a talk to MSc Wildlife Biology students at the University of Guelph: Welfare during avian conservation translocations.

 

Veterinary Education

Dr Sarah Baillie celebrated the publication of Evaluation of 3D-Printed Feline Skull Models as Educational Tools for Radiographic Interpretation of Craniomaxillofacial Traumatic Injuries: A Randomized Trial, which demonstrated that 3D models enhance veterinary students’ interpretive skills.

Preparations are well underway for VetEd 2025, the leading symposium for veterinary education, taking place from 2–4 July 2025 at the University of Bristol.
 🔗 Find more information about VetEd25

Thank you to everyone across the Bristol Veterinary School for your continued excellence in research and collaboration. Your work not only shapes veterinary practices but also has lasting impacts on animal welfare, public health and the future of veterinary education.

— Research Office, Bristol Veterinary School