Personal Statement
I graduated from Liverpool in 1993 (where does time go) with degrees in veterinary science and molecular biology. After a one-year internship in Small Animal Medicine in University College Dublin, I returned to Liverpool for a PhD on the evolution of feline calicivirus. Something must be good at Liverpool - I stayed here eventually becoming a Professor of Veterinary Health Informatics in 2019.

During my time I have been fortunate to work on lots of interesting research and teaching projects including communications skills training for clinicians and researchers, postgraduate education, and in the research domain, pioneering both the use of next generation sequencing technology and research using the growing availability of large volumes of electronic health records in veterinary science and virology.

Our groups particular focus is now on integrating at large scale, and as close to real-time as possible, these data and sequencing technologies to help address real-world challenges such as antimicrobial resistance, impact of climate on disease, and pathogen emergence. We work with a range of funders across government, charity and commercial sectors.
If you are interested in working in, or with such a group, please do get in contact. We are passionate about training the next generation of data scientists at all levels from undergraduate to postgraduate. We can offer a wide scale of projects form short summer projects for students, to large interdisciplinary collaborative grants.

Keywords; veterinary microbiology, virus evolution, surveillance, health data science, genomics, machine learning, text mining

Research Overview
Alan graduated from Liverpool in 1993 with degrees in veterinary science and molecular biology. After a one year internship in Small Animal Medicine in Dublin, he returned to Liverpool to complete his PhD on the evolution of feline calicivirus. Since then he has continued using “next generation” sequence data to understand the biology of infectious diseases from viruses to antimicrobial resistance. In parallel, and with major support from BSAVA, BBSRC and DogsTrust, Alan helped establish the Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (www.liverpool.ac.uk/savsnet). SAVSNET collects large volumes of companion animal electronic health data from veterinary practitioners and diagnostic laboratories across the UK. These are collated centrally, and used for a wide range of research and surveillance including antibacterial use and resistance. Surveillance reports are published in the Veterinary Record, and SAVSNET is generating real-time data on diseases (https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/savsnet.at.liverpool/). As well as research, anonymised data are fed back to participating practices in real-time providing a new population perspective to daily practice. These studies using data are now complemented by the establishment with participating laboratories of a Virtual Biobank, in which leftover diagnostic samples are sent to Liverpool for typing to allow a better understanding of the evolution and transmission of infectious diseases in our UK pet population.