Animal Health

Dr Barreaux Antoine

Dr. Antoine Barreaux is a Visiting Scientist under the Animal Health Theme and is based at the Duduville Campus.

He holds a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

In addition to joining icipe, Antoine is working as an epidemiologist and mathematical modeler in the mixed research unit Intertryp, department BIOS, at CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), France. His previous engagements include a Senior Research Associate and a Research Associate position at the University of Bristol, UK, in the Schools of Biological Sciences and Veterinary Sciences, and a Postdoctoral Scholar position at Penn State University, US, in the Department of Entomology and the Centre for Infectious Disease Dynamics.

Antoine is a member of Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge/ the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene/the European Society of Evolutionary Biology/ Evolutionary Demography Society/the British Society of Ecology/ Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour/ Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Society/ and American Society of Naturalists.

Some of his professional achievements are in the areas of Animal African Trypanosomiasis control, Human African Trypanosomiasis elimination, the development of mathematical frameworks to understand host-microbiome-pathogen interactions, and scientific outreach with the development and implementation of a board game aimed at educating primary-school aged children about arthropod disease vectors, pathogens they transmit, and approaches to combating infectious diseases in the UK & Zimbabwe.

His research aims to reduce vector-borne disease transmission by integrating translational and basic science in control programs and to inform policy. Antoine integrates experimental, field, and theoretical approaches to improve disease models and contribute to the implementation of improved or novel interventions. He is also developing species distribution models, robust data analysis pipelines and models of optimal decision-making under uncertainty.

Dr Getahun Merid Negash

Dr. Merid Getahun is a Senior Scientist under the Animal Health Theme. He did his Ph.D. and Postdoctoral studies at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena Germany on Drosophila olfaction.

His research interests are in the Neuroethology of veterinary, medical, and agricultural important insects to develop olfaction-based insect vectors and pest control technologies for improving health and food security and maximizing insects’ beneficial role.

He studies how various vectors-livestock-pathogens interact, which is critical to understanding how vectors make decisions, how livestock defend themselves using secondary metabolites from disease pathogens, and how pathogens modulate both host physiology and vector behaviour for their own survival. To use infection-induced/modified secondary metabolites for vector control (attractants and repellents) formulation and to develop simple user-friendly livestock diseases diagnostic tools and naturally inspired drugs. He also studies how vectors interact with their environment such as the selection of birthing substrates/sites, the role of rumen microbes in various livestock secondary metabolites production, including greenhouse gas emissions, and their role in livestock-environment interaction. Such a study will give us insight into how to make livestock environmentally friendly as well as to protect them from vectors bite and diseases. Detailed knowledge of livestock-pathogens-vectors interaction will give us insight into the control and evolution of defense in livestock.

Some of his achievements include collaborating with icipe colleagues to establish a state-of-the-art laboratory in insect neuroethology and climate science, bringing a new scientific environment to icipe such as neurogenetics, odorant-receptor integration, single sensillum recording, developing techniques to identify odorant receptors involved in coding behaviorally relevant odorants, for instance, tsetse repellent compounds. He has developed a simple pastoralist-friendly biomarker-based animal trypanosomosis and surra diagnostic tool, formulated a selective attractant targeting infected tsetse flies, gravid stomoxys, developed selective biting flies traps and an effective nanopolymer beads dispenser, as an odorant carrier. He also developed a method using rumen microbes and secondary metabolites networking manipulation to make livestock farming environmentally sustainable while empowering pastoralists and farmers in livestock vectors and disease management.

He has mentored and continues to mentor Ph.D. and MSc students in Chemical Ecology.

Dr Villinger Jandouwe

Dr Villinger is the Interim Head of Animal Health Theme at icipe. With a background in vertebrate immunity and the genetic underpinnings of kin recognition and pathogen–vector–host interactions, he has helped to establish icipe’s Martin Lüscher Emerging Infectious Diseases (ML-EID) Laboratory, where he led the development of multiplex PCR with high-resolution melting (HRM) approaches for the rapid identification of diverse arthropod vectored viruses (arboviruses), Plasmodium (malaria) parasites, tick-borne pathogens, arthropod vector species and their blood-meal hosts. His broad research interests include transmission dynamics of vectored pathogens considering both vector, pathogen and host diversities in an effort to identify new strategies to block the transmission of vector-borne diseases.

He has supervised five PhD students, ten MSc students and three postdoctoral fellows.