Gertrude Thompson
Associate Professor
My research interest focuses on microbes and their complex interactions with the hosts, the environment and their potential impact in health, biodiversity and conservation.
The interface between wildlife, domestic animals and humans, favoured by the increase in human populations and landscape changes and facilitating the emergence of infectious diseases, urges the addressing of the infectious agents across species and habitats in an attempt to identify their evolution and reservoirs. My goal is therefore, to promote integrated research activities, with a focus on infectious agents that affects domestic and companion animals, wildlife and are of public health awareness.
The objectives of my laboratory are to contribute in the understanding of microbial pathogenesis, host-pathogen interactions, epidemiology, antimicrobial susceptibility, and development of diagnostic tools. Understand locally significant emerging, re-emerging and zoonotic pathogens, in their intra-specific genetic variability, and virulence markers are goals in our research. To achieve these objectives, we integrate clinical, computational and basic science research.
My laboratory has research interests and collaborations in the local community and around the world.