Adrian is a Chancellor’s Fellow focusing on “digital one-health”, as veterinarian he specialised in molecular epidemiology and now develops technology to enable implementation of one-health strategies in Africa. His main area of research is Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) development and dissemination at the human-animal interface. Here Adrian is developing genomic analytical pipelines to support the utility clinical metagenomics in AMR research and training for developing countries such as Uganda and Malawi. He is also developing distributed Ledger technology for mapping antibiotic usage whose output can be used to estimate antibiotic resistance across temporal and spatial scales. Furthermore, Adrian leads a team of epidemiologist, clinicians, social scientist, bio-ethicists and software engineers that are developing and implementing a digital track and trace system tailored to haulage in East Africa, https://project-thea.org/ .

Research

He has previously held a BBSRC Future Leader Fellowship unravelling the dynamics that generate and disseminate AMR genes within guts of subsistence farmers and their animals in Uganda. This work aimed to gain fundamental insight into the generation, sharing and transfer of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes within and between humans and their livestock under natural settings that represent different levels of antimicrobial stewardship. Defining these dynamics offers the best chance of developing effective control measures and underwrites the efforts toward limiting irrational antibiotic use in both human and animal health care. In this regard, Adrian is the co-director of the Fleming Fund Fellowships for Uganda and Malawi. This aims to build capacity for AMR diagnostics, surveillance and Stewardship at National level.

He has also worked on projects that aimed at documenting the prevalence, distribution and transmission of Mycobacterium bovis at the human-animal interface in Cameroon, Southern Sudan, Uganda and Zambia. In the process mapping disease drivers in both human and animal populations as well as identifying barriers to detection. In collaboration with United States Department of Agriculture he has also explored the utility of the M.bovis  genome in understanding host dynamics especially since these pathogens are hitch hickers on hosts.  In this regard he also collaborates with researchers at the following institutions on the World M.bovis project; University of Pretoria, University of Zambia, Makerere University, University of Barh el Gazel, Bamenda Tuberculosis reference Laboratory, University of Ibadan, Tuberculosis research laboratory in Chad, Awassa University and the Norwegian Veterinary Institute.

Policy

Adrian has also served as the chair of Zoonotic TB Subsection at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung disease. Here he led a working group tasked with creating global awareness of zoonotic TB which also closely works with the World health Organization (WHO), The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), World Organisation for animal Health (OIE), The Center for disease control and Prevention (CDC), Stop TB partnership to develop a unified global policy on zoonotic tuberculosis. This team has recently published a global policy roadmap for zoonotic TB see link https://www.who.int/tb/publications/2017/zoonotic_TB/en/

Highlighting of our global campaign on zoonotic TB

1.     Tuberculosis is spreading from animals to humans - CNN.com

2.     http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/31/health/veterinarian-contracts-tuberculosis-from-wildebeest/

3.     https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-11-07-health-e-the-vet-and-the-wildebeest/#.WHQsl1Ld7dk  

Knowledge exchange and commercialization

Adrian has recently also been involved in knowledge exchange and commercialization (KEC) in Edinburgh and here he worked as a technology scout tasked with linking Edinburgh infectious disease consortium to Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies in Asia with an aim of translating academic research out put...see link www.eid.ed.ac.uk  

Research interests

- Metagenomics and the role of the gut Microbiome in antibiotic development

- Molecular characteristics of Bacterial antimicrobial resistance

- Functional genomics of Mycobacterium bovis

- Molecular epidemiology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex 

- M.bovis and Brucella spp evolution (Host-pathogen co evolution)

- The history of epidemics

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-11-07-health-e-the-vet-and-the-wildebeest/ 

Tuberculosis is spreading from animals to humans - CNN.com

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/31/health/veterinarian-contracts-tuberculosis-from-wildebeest/ 

http://www.eid.ed.ac.uk/news/global-zoonotic-tb-control 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37729096

Fluffy could give you TB | Health24

Cattle TB can hinder fight against human TB, scientists say - bdnews24.com 

On World Tuberculosis Day: Why you need to know your enemy when it comes to irradicating TB | Edinburgh Infectious Diseases

We need more specific tuberculosis genotyping

Studies: Progress against TB hindered by faltering response to disease among key affected populations | 46th World Conference on Lung Health

India Splutters Against TB as New Challenges Erupt Worldwide | The Wire