DrOm Dhungyel

After completion of BVSC & AH undergraduate degree from the Kerala Agricultural University in India Om worked as a Regional and Zonal Veterinary Officer in his home country Bhutan for five years.

Om was awarded an FAO Fellowship to undertake post graduate studies at the Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney. On completion of his post graduate studies Om worked on an ACIAR funded project on footrot in sheep and goats in Nepal. He successfully made a recombinant DNA footrot vaccine which was used to control and eradicate endemic footrot in that country. He has also worked on a similar project in Bhutan and other footrot projects and research collaborations in India, China and Malaysia. He has been a Research Leader of the research team looking at molecular pathogenesis of footrot working in collaboration with Monash University and the State Departments of Primary Industries. Om also worked on the Ovine Johne's Disease epidemiology project. He returned to research on diagnostics and vaccines for ovine footrot and leads the research team as principal investigator on a number of Australian Sheep industry funded projects. Om was a member of the NSW Footrot Technical Advisory Committee for a number of years and has been an advisor on technical matters relating to footrot to the state footrot coordinators, district Vets and farmers in Australia and New Zealand.

Om's expertise on footrot research has been well recognised both at the national and the international levels. He is reviewer for a number of international journals like the Vaccine, Veterinary Microbiology, Veterinary Record, Journal of Bacteriology, Australian Veterinary Journal, Journal of Dairy Science and others for scientific publications. He is also recognised as a reviewer for research project evaluations and has reviewed Government funded research projects in Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland. Currently he has research collaborations with EMAI DPI, NSW, Utrecht University in The Netherlands, National Veterinary Research Institute in Uruguay and in New Zealand