Med-Vet-Net People – Tony Fooks

Tony Fooks

Workpackage 5 Leader

Dr Tony Fooks leads the Rabies and Wildlife Zoonoses Group at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (National Reference Laboratory for Rabies). In addition, he acts as a scientific advisor to The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and to the UK Department of Health (DoH) on all issues relating to rabies and other zoonotic viral pathogens. Since 2001, he was appointed director of a World Health Organisation Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response Collaborating Centre for the characterisation of rabies and rabies-related viruses.

His research is focused in three multidisciplinary areas: (i) epidemiology of viruses; (ii) pathogenesis and animal-animal/animal-human transmission of viruses (iii) innate/adaptive immunity. Throughout his research career, he has focused on the interaction between RNA viruses that invade the central nervous system and host immunity.

He recently joined the editorial board of Epidemiology and Infection in 2004 and of BMC Veterinary Research in March 2005 and acted as a co-editor for a book entitled ‘The Historical Perspective of Rabies in Europe and The Mediterranean Basin’, published in 2004.