Stuart Blacksell

Dr Stuart Blacksell is a Professor of Tropical Microbiology at the University of Oxford based at the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU) in Thailand since 2001. He has been actively involved in studies in Southeast Asia since 1989 and is Visiting Professor at the Open University UK, Mahidol University and Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. At MORU, Dr. Blacksell is the Biorisk and Zoonosis group leader, where he leads projects on One Health and high-consequence veterinary pathogens. He is also the group leader of the Rickettsia Threat Reduction Network, which coordinates collaborative networks with like-minded researchers. Dr. Blacksell and his team are responsible for implementing and enforcing University of Oxford health and safety and biosafety regulations across the MORU network and for training new and existing staff. 

Dr Blacksell has been a Registered Biosafety Professional with the American Biological Safety Association since 2009 and was a member of the WHO Laboratory Biosafety Manual 4th edition (LBM) editorial committee. He was also an original WHO COVID-19 IHR expert committee member in 2020. Currently, he holds memberships of the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), WHO Technical Advisory Group on Responsible Use of Life Sciences and Dual-use Research (TAG-RUL-DUR). He is deputy chair of the WHO Technical Advisory Group for Biosafety and Biosecurity (TAG-B). At the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) he has contributed to programs on biosafety and biosecurity throughout Southeast Asia has recently been working with the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) and Chatham House on the Biosafety Research Roadmap to determine gaps in biosafety evidence. He has published more than 200 journal articles and is currently a Section Editor (Bacteria) for PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases and an editorial board member of Applied Biosafety and BMC Infectious Diseases journals.