Team members

Environmental and Food Microbiology

David Stead -

Team leader
Environmental and Food Microbiology

David is leader of the Environmental and Food Microbiology team. He manages delegated budgets for all team projects and has responsibility for management and delivery of these projects. His area of specialism is as a consultant on bacterial diseases of crops and is director of the National Collection of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria. David is a member of several national and international committees.

Publications

Weller, SA. Stead, DE. Young, JPW (2006) Recurrent outbreaks of root mat in cucumber and tomatassociated with a monomorphic, cucumopine, Ri-plasmid harboured by various a-Proteobacteria. FEMS MicrobLetters.

Weller, SA. Stead, DE. Young, JPW (2005) Induction of root mat symptoms on cucumber plants by Rhizobut not by Ochrobactrum and Sinorhizobium, harbouring a cucumopine Ri plasmid. Plant Pathology 54, 799-805

Weller, SA. Stead, DE. Young, JPW (2004) Acquistion of an Agrobacterium Ri plasmid, and pathogenicother a-proteobacteria in cucumber and tomato crops affected by root mat. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 2779-2785

For more publications that David has authored or contributed to, please use the CSL publications database.

Nigel Cook -

Microbiologist

Nigel leads the Food and Environmental Virology section. Chair of COST Action 929 "A European Network for Environmental and Food Virology" (www.cost929-environet.org), and the UK Environmental and Food Virology Network. Coordinator of FP7 project "Monitoring and Control of Foodborne Viruses in European Food Supply Chains (VITAL). Participates in the standardization body CEN/TC275/WG6/TAG3 "PCR for the detection of food-borne pathogens", and in the British Standards Institute AW/9 committee for the microbiology of food and feed, as a co-opted member for his specialist expertise in viruses.

Publications

Rodriguez-Lázaro, D., D'Agostino, M., Herrewegh, A., Pla, M., Cook, N. and Ikonomopoulos, J. (2005). Real-time PCR-based methods for detection of Mycobacterium avium susp. paratuberculosis in water and milk. International Journal of Food Microbiology 101 93-104.

Ikonomopoulos, J., Pavlik, I., Bartos, M., Svastova, P., Ayele, W.Y., Roubal, P., Lukas, J., Cook N. and Gazouli, M. (2005). Detection of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in retail cheeses from Greece and the Czech Republic. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 71 8934-8936.

Rzezutka A. and Cook, N. (2004). Survival of human enteric viruses in the environment and food. FEMS Microbiology Reviews 28 441-453.

For more publications that Nigel has authored or contributed to, please use the CSL publications database.

Martin D'Agostino -

Microbiologist

Martin is a member of the Food and Environmental Virology section of PLHD. Webmaster of COST Action 929 "A European Network for Environmental and Food Virology" (www.cost929-environet.org). Assistant Coordinator of FP7 project "Monitoring and Control of Foodborne Viruses in European Food Supply Chains (VITAL). Participates in the standardization body CEN/TC275/WG6/TAG3 "PCR for the detection of food-borne pathogens", and in the Environment Agency's Standing Committee of Analysts. Also the NCP for CSL as the National Milk Reference Laboratory.

Publications

D'Agostino, M. and Rodriguez-Lazaro, D. Harmonization and validation of methods in food safety - "FOOD-PCR" a case study. Global Issues in Food Safety and Technology. G. Barbosa-Canovas et al. (eds). Elsevier. (in press)

D'Agostino, M., Wagner, M., Vazquez-Boland, J.A., Kuchta, T., Karpiskova, R., Hoorfar, J., Novella, S., Scortti, M., Ellison, J., Murray, A., Heuvelink, A, Kuhn, M., Pazlarova, J., Fernandez, I. and Cook, N. (2004). A validated PCR-based method to detect Listeria monocytogenes using raw milk as a food model - towards an international standard. Journal of Food Protection 67 1646 - 1655.

Malorny, B. Cook, N., D'Agostino, M., De Medici, D., Croci, L., Abdulmawjood, A., Fach, P., Karpiskova, R., Aymerich, T., Kwaitek, K., Kuchta, T. and Hoorfar, J. (2004). Multicenter collaborative trial validation of a PCR-based method for detection of Salmonella in chicken and pig samples. Journal of AOAC International 87 861 - 866

For more publications that Martin has authored or contributed to, please use the CSL publications database.

Richard Thwaites -

Microbiologist

Richard's research interests focus on the biology of pathogenic bacteria and how this can be used to develop disease management and pathogen detection systems. Current projects include:

• The biology and control of pathogenic Streptomyces, the causal agent of common scab of potato
• Methods to identify and characterise virulence genes in plant-pathogenic bacteria, with a view to investigating evolution of bacterial virulence and development of pathovar-specific DNA-based diagnostic methods
• Development of novel lab and field-based diagnostic tests for bacterial plant, animal and human pathogens in a range of environments

Publications

Pitman, A. R., Jackson, R.W., Mansfield, J.W., Kaitell, V., Thwaites, R. and Arnold, D.L. 2005. Exposure to host resistance mechanisms drives evolution of bacterial virulence in plants. Current Biology 15 2230-2235.

Thwaites, R., Eden-Green, S. and Black, R. (2000) Diseases Caused by Bacteria. 213-239 in: Diseases of Banana, Abaca and Enset. CABI, Wallingford.

Thwaites, R., Mansfield, J., Eden-Green, S. and Seal, S. (1999) RAPD and rep-PCR fingerprinting of vascular bacterial pathogens of Musa spp. Plant Pathology 48 121-128.

For more publications that Richard has authored or contributed to, please use the CSL publications database.