Susan Christina Welburn | |
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Alma mater | University of the West of England University of Bristol |
Scientific career | |
Institutions | University of Glasgow University of Edinburgh |
Thesis | The rickettsia-like organisms of Glossina spp (1991) |
Susan Welburn is a British epidemiologist who is a professor and Chair of Medical and Veterinary Molecular Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research considers the parasitic interactions that underpin sleeping sickness. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2025 New Year Honours.
Welburn was an undergraduate student at the University of the West of England. She earned a doctorate at the University of Bristol, where she researched the rickettsia-like organisms of Glossina. She started her career at the Bristol Tsetse Research Laboratories, before moving to the University of Glasgow. She has projects in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia and Tanzania, focussing on interventions for disease control. [1]
In 2000, Welburn joined the University of Edinburgh. Her research looks at the parasitic interactions that lead to the transmission of human sleeping sickness. She has investigated the complex mechanisms that underpin parasite differentiation, the transmission of disease and the epidemiology of sleeping sickness. [1]
Welburn has designed molecular diagnostic techniques to study sleeping sickness and other neglected zoonotic diseases, including anthrax, rabies, and tuberculosis. [1] [2] In 2006 she established the Ugandan Public Private Partnership to Stamp Out Sleeping Sickness. [3] She developed a One Health approach for medical and veterinary public health interventions. [4] [5] Welburn is the founding Director of the University of Edinburgh Global Health Academy. [6]
In 2015, Welburn was appointed Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [7] She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2025 New Year Honours. [8] [9]
African trypanosomiasis is an insect-borne parasitic infection of humans and other animals.
Trypanosomiasis or trypanosomosis is the name of several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic protozoan trypanosomes of the genus Trypanosoma. In humans this includes African trypanosomiasis and Chagas disease. A number of other diseases occur in other animals.
Trypanosoma brucei is a species of parasitic kinetoplastid belonging to the genus Trypanosoma that is present in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike other protozoan parasites that normally infect blood and tissue cells, it is exclusively extracellular and inhabits the blood plasma and body fluids. It causes deadly vector-borne diseases: African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness in humans, and animal trypanosomiasis or nagana in cattle and horses. It is a species complex grouped into three subspecies: T. b. brucei, T. b. gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense. The first is a parasite of non-human mammals and causes nagana, while the latter two are zoonotic infecting both humans and animals and cause African trypanosomiasis.
Major-General Sir David Bruce, was a Scottish pathologist and microbiologist who made some of the key contributions in tropical medicine. In 1887, he discovered a bacterium, now called Brucella, that caused what was known as Malta fever. In 1894, he discovered a protozoan parasite, named Trypanosoma brucei, as the causative pathogen of nagana.
Animal trypanosomiasis, also known as nagana and nagana pest, or sleeping sickness, is a disease of vertebrates. The disease is caused by trypanosomes of several species in the genus Trypanosoma such as T. brucei. T. vivax causes nagana mainly in West Africa, although it has spread to South America. The trypanosomes infect the blood of the vertebrate host, causing fever, weakness, and lethargy, which lead to weight loss and anemia; in some animals the disease is fatal unless treated. The trypanosomes are transmitted by tsetse flies.
Brian Derek Perry, OBE is a British veterinary surgeon and epidemiologist renowned for the integration of veterinary epidemiology and agricultural economics, as a tool for disease control policy and strategy development, and specialised in international agricultural development. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh, a visiting professor at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Oxford.
Sarah Cleaveland is a veterinary surgeon and Professor of Comparative Epidemiology at the University of Glasgow.
Development impact bonds (DIBs) are a performance-based investment instrument intended to finance development programmes in low resource countries, which are built off the model of social impact bond (SIB) model. In general, the model works the same: an investor provides upfront funding to the implementer of a program. An evaluator measures the results of the implementer's program. If these results hit a target set before the implementation period, an outcome payer agrees to provide investors a return on their capital. This ensures that investors are not simply engaging in concessionary lending. The first social impact bond was originated by Social Finance UK in 2010, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, structured to reduce recidivism among inmates from Peterborough Prison.
Una M. Ryan is a biochemist from Ireland, researching parasites and infectious agents in Australia, where she lives. She is an associate professor at the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences of Murdoch University. In 2000, she received the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year from the Prime Minister of Australia for her work in isolating a method of diagnosing parasites.
Francisca Mutapi is a Professor in Global Health Infection and Immunity, co-Director of the Global Health Academy at the University of Edinburgh, and Deputy Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Unit Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa. She is the first black woman known to have been awarded a professorship by the University of Edinburgh.
Ioanna Tzoulaki is a professor of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London. She investigates prognostic risk factors and models for chronic diseases and meta-epidemiology. In 2019 she received a Greek L’ORÉAL-UNESCO Award for Women in Science.
The Sleeping Sickness Commission was a medical project established by the British Royal Society to investigate the outbreak of African sleeping sickness or African trypanosomiasis in Africa at the turn of the 20th century. The outbreak of the disease started in 1900 in Uganda, which was at the time a protectorate of the British Empire. The initial team in 1902 consisted of Aldo Castellani and George Carmichael Low, both from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Cuthbert Christy, a medical officer on duty in Bombay, India. From 1903, David Bruce of the Royal Army Medical Corps and David Nunes Nabarro of the University College Hospital took over the leadership. The commission established that species of blood protozoan called Trypanosoma brucei, named after Bruce, was the causative parasite of sleeping sickness.
Gail Davey OBE is a professor of epidemiology at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, UK. Her work focuses on Neglected Tropical Diseases, particular podoconiosis.
Christine Kreuder Johnson is an American epidemiologist and veterinary scientist who is Professor and Director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics at the One Health Institute. She serves as Professor of Epidemiology and Ecosystem Health at the University of California, Davis. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021 for her novel research to investigate the epidemiology of zoonotic infectious diseases using One Health approaches, illuminate key animal-human interfaces that facilitate transmission of infectious diseases, and identify synergies for environmental stewardship to protect animal and human health.
Linda Sharples is a British statistician who is Professor of Medical Statistics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Her research considers statistical analysis of medical interventions. She has provided expert advice to clinical trials on cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.
Jackie Benschop is a New Zealand Professor of Veterinary Public Health at Massey University, specialising in the animal–human–environment interface, particularly for Leptospira, Campylobacter and Salmonella. She is a member of the World Health Organisation's Steering Committee for the Global Leptospirosis Environmental Action Network, and a co-founder of the African Leptospirosis Network.
Joanne P. Webster is a British epidemiologist who is the Royal Veterinary College Chair in Parasitic Diseases, Director of the Centre for Emerging, Endemic and Exotic Diseases and Professor of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Naomi Cogger is an Australian–New Zealand epidemiologist, and is a full professor at Massey University, specialising in the epidemiology of animal diseases that impact animal and human health, and food security.
Maureen Carolyn Gates is an American–New Zealand academic veterinarian, and is a full professor at Massey University. She specialises in evidence-based solutions for animal health problems, and has been recognised for developing innovative teaching methods.
Susan Mary Bennett Morton is a New Zealand epidemiologist, and is a full professor of public health at the University of Technology Sydney, specialising in longitudinal studies of public health. In 2019, Morton was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to epidemiology and public health research.
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