Begona Valdazo-Gonzalez

Begona Valdazo-Gonzalez is a Senior Research Scientist within the Virology Department of the National Institute of Biological Controls and Standards (NIBSC), United Kingdom (UK). Her objective is to support NIBSC’s activities as a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Reference & Research on poliomyelitis. Previous to her current position, she was working as Post-doctoral Research Scientist and Veterinary Practitioner at The Pirbright Institute, UK. She was generating an analysing full genome sequences of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) using both Sanger and Next Generation Sequencing. She compared this data together with epidemiological data to increase the understanding of the transmission pathways of the virus within field outbreaks and to support on-real time FMDV control policy. She completed her PhD on the epidemiology, clinical signs and molecular and antigenic characterization of pestiviruses in Spanish sheep and goats.’